The 101st
by islandgirl394
Summary: He went to earth to protect his sister. Who knew that his life would only start when his feet touched the ground? ON TEMPORARY HIATUS
1. Pilot

**Thank you for choosing this story!**

 **Hope you enjoy and please review :)**

 **Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and places from the 100 universe, which is trademarked by the CW network. However, ideas presented in this story and are in no way endorsed by the CW or anyone affiliated with the the 100.**

* * *

Chapter 1: Pilot

With a heavy sigh, Bellamy shuts the door of the trash chute and wipes his hands on his uniform. He's gotten rid of the last of that day's garbage and is now free to return to his quarters for the night. Without a word to any of his coworkers, Bellamy returns his janitorial cart and flashes his maintenance badge to ensure that his hours would be clocked for the day.

It had been like this for months. Ever since he'd made that reckless decision to let Octavia go to that party. The decision that had resulted in his demotion, Octavia's confinement, and his mother's death. He supposed that maybe in part he was punishing himself – cutting himself off from everyone on the ark, refusing to make friends with any of his coworkers. But the truth is, Bellamy knows he deserves it. He deserves to be miserable for the rest of his life. After what he did, he should have been the one to have been floated – to have risked Octavia and his mother the way he did for the selfish pleasure of putting a smile on his sister's face – he was the one to blame. And his punishment had been the lightest of the three.

He slowly makes his way back to his quarters. There is no reason to rush really. The empty room he calls home is only a reminder of the family he'd ripped to pieces. Out in the ark corridors, Bellamy can pretend that everything is as it used to be. He can pretend that Octavia is waiting for him to come home, to tell her all about his day. Octavia loved hearing Bellamy's stories about life outside their four walls. Even a story as mundane as having to take the long route to work because the main corridor was closed for maintenance would have Octavia on the edge of her seat.

But when Bellamy opens the door to his quarters, Octavia isn't sitting there waiting anxiously for him to come home. His mother isn't on her way home with rations for two that they would divide into rations for three. The room no longer bears any sign of life. Not Octavia's, not his mothers… not even Bellamy's.

When his mother had been floated and Octavia confined, Bellamy had cleared out all the personal belongings that they'd left behind. He'd thought that seeing them everyday – his mother's favorite sweater, Octavia's hair ribbons – would be too painful. But looking around at the empty room, Bellamy wonders if this isn't more painful. Spending everyday in a room that was only a shell of what it used to be. Staring at an empty chair day in and day out that should have been occupied by his sister. But there's nothing Bellamy can do. This is his life now.

A knock at the door pulls Bellamy from his thoughts. Feeling a little annoyed at the disturbance, Bellamy turns around and walks to the door, pushing it open to see who could possibly be interested in seeing him.

"Cadet Blake."

The man at the door is Lieutenant Shumway.

"It's janitor Blake now, Lieutenant."

If Shumway has only come to mock Bellamy's new station, then Bellamy is ready to shut the door right in the man's face. How dare he come waltzing in after everything that happened? After Shumway arrested Octavia, testified against both Octavia and Bellamy's mother, pressed the button that floated his mother, cut Bellamy from the guardsman training program? How dare he show up at Bellamy's door after ruining everything in Bellamy's life?

And suddenly, Shumway is inviting himself inside and Bellamy is letting him. Of course, Bellamy would rather punch the man in the face than let him into the home he'd shared with his family, but Bellamy knows better. A punch in the face of a Lieutenant – Commander now, as Shumway informed him – would only result in Bellamy getting floated. The ark has a zero-tolerance policy on violence towards guardsmen.

"What the hell do you want from me?" Bellamy asks.

He knows that Shumway had to have come for a reason. And then Shumway mentions Octavia.

"Is she okay?" Bellamy asks, his entire body freezing up as he imagines the worst. What could have happened to her that would have the Commander at his door?

And then Shumway tells him about the mission to earth.

"No, no… you can't, it's not safe, you have to stop them!" Bellamy cries, unable to move, unable to think, unable to breathe. Octavia was supposed to get a second chance. On her eighteenth birthday, her case would be reviewed, and the decision would be made to either let her return to life on the ark, or to float her. Bellamy had been counting on Octavia received her freedom. After all, it isn't as though Octavia was the one that had broken the law. And their mother had already been floated. But if Shumway is telling the truth and Octavia is being sent to the ground – even if she didn't die immediately from radiation, she wouldn't last long without any survival skills.

And then Shumway offers Bellamy a seat on the drop ship and Bellamy knows there's going to be a catch, but he also knows that he doesn't have a choice. Letting Octavia go to earth alone, with a bunch of juvenile delinquents? That's not even an option.

The next thing Bellamy knows, Shumway hands him a gun. "Kill the Chancellor," the Commander orders him.

Bellamy takes the gun in his hands and suddenly all the rage he feels, all the hopelessness, all the despair of the last months come to a head and Bellamy points the gun right at Shumway. It would be so easy, just to pull the trigger and end the man's life right there. Bellamy doesn't care about the Chancellor, but he sure as hell knows he'd like Shumway dead. But Shumway makes a good point. Octavia's ship is about to leave and Bellamy needs Shumway to get onto it. He can't kill Shumway. Not yet anyway.

Bellamy lowers the gun and nods. "What's the plan?"

Shumway immediately bolts into action.

"First, you'll need a guardsman uniform. It's the only way you'll get onto the dropship," he says as he leads Bellamy out into the corridor. "Now, the Chancellor is going to be supervising the boarding of the dropship, so it's going to be tricky getting in a good shot. I'll distract everyone by saying there's a prisoner trying to escape. When they all look the other way, you shoot. As soon as the Chancellor drops, everyone will rush to his side, which will be your cue to get on that dropship. Once the doors close, you're on your own."

"Just one question," Bellamy says, pausing outside the door to a janitor's closet that Shumway claims to have stashed a guardsman's uniform in. "Why do you want the Chancellor dead?"

"Does it matter?" Shumway asks.

Bellamy realizes it doesn't. He'll kill Jaha either way if it means protecting his sister.

Getting into the guardsman uniform feels strange, alien. As a cadet, he'd always aspired to one day get to wear the full uniform, but this feels like a lie – he didn't earn this uniform, he stole it. But that doesn't matter now.

He emerges from the closet fully dressed and stashes the gun in his weapons pouch. Then he follows Shumway towards the hangar bay where the dropship is being loaded with 100 of the teenage prisoners from the sky box.

Bellamy cranes his neck, frantically trying to catch a glimpse of Octavia, but it's no use. There are too many people, and besides, Octavia might already be on board. Shumway gestures in the direction of Chancellor Jaha and Bellamy nods, getting into position between the dropship and the Chancellor. He has to wait only a moment for Shumway to make his exclamation.

"Stop her! She's trying to escape!" he cries.

Everyone turns to see where Shumway is pointing. Even the prisoners stop walking to see who might be trying to escape.

Bellamy knows it's not or never. He glances around to ensure that nobody is watching and then realizes that even if they are watching, he still has to do this. He won't get another opportunity like this one. He raises the gun, points it at the Chancellor, and closes his eyes.

"My sister," he mutters under his breath as he works up the nerve to pull the trigger. "My responsibility."

He shoots. A loud bang goes off and Bellamy stumbles a bit, surprised by the kickback.

Everything is chaos. People are screaming, people are crying, and almost everyone is running to see if the Chancellor is alright. Bellamy runs in the opposite direction.

The dropship isn't far, but when he reaches it, he finds that the commotion he left behind is nowhere to be found. Down here, nobody knows that the Chancellor is dead yet. Bellamy had been counting on the chaos to ensure that nobody would see him slip into the dropship. Without it, Bellamy will have to improvise.

The prisoners are boarding the dropship in a straight line. Guardsmen are all around, ensuring that everything goes smoothly and efficiently. Bellamy knows that as soon as the prisoners are all on board, his chance to board too will be gone. So, on an instinct, Bellamy steps out, grabs the nearest prisoner – a girl – by the arm, and leads her into the dropship himself.

"Hey! What are you - ?" the girl cries, unhappy at being manhandled.

"Shut up," Bellamy mutters, keeping his head down as he passes the guardsmen. If they were to see his face, they might realize he isn't one of them.

As soon as they're on board the dropship, Bellamy releases the girl and she hurries away to take a seat, shooting Bellamy annoyed looks as she does so. Meanwhile, Bellamy scans the space, hoping that Octavia is on this level. When he concludes that she isn't, he's about to turn around to try a higher level, only to find that the prisoners are all on board and that the doors are closing.

"This is it," Bellamy mutters under his breath, to the confusion of some of the teenagers nearby. He locates the last empty seat on his level and sits down, ensuring that the restraints are fastened tightly. The trip to earth will be rough, and Bellamy doesn't want to get thrown from his seat.

"You're coming with us?" the boy across from Bellamy asks, frowning at his uniform.

Bellamy nods, not in the mood to entertain a long conversation about what he's doing there and how he isn't actually a guardsman.

There's a loud noise, and the dropship starts to vibrate. Bellamy knows it's getting ready to drop and he closes his eyes and prays that the landing doesn't kill them all immediately. If they're all destined to die on earth, he wants – he needs – to see Octavia at least one more time. He needs her to know that she isn't alone, that she isn't going to die on earth alone.

Another loud noise and the vibrating stops. The weightlessness tells Bellamy that they have separated from the ark and are heading to earth. He opens his eyes and looks around at all the terrified faces surrounding him. These people – these children – they aren't ready for this. None of them seem capable of fending for themselves, of surviving alone on earth. One hundred isn't many people and the earth could hold any number of unimaginable dangers.

Another loud noise and the lights flicker. A few people scream as the whole ship shakes. Bellamy feels his heart jump a little in fear, but he swallows it. He can't be scared, not with everyone else so terrified. Someone has to keep a cool head if they're all going to survive down there. If Octavia is going to survive down there.

Monitors on the walls flash and suddenly, there is the Chancellor, taking about second chances and wiping their slates clean. Bellamy's first thought is that this must be a recording, because Jaha is dead and couldn't possibly be speaking live right now. Bellamy's second thought is that there is no way his slate is going to be wiped clean. But there's no time to dwell on this right now.

Bellamy knows the moment they enter earth's atmosphere because suddenly the ship starts shaking like crazy. There are a few screams, people crying out that they're all going to die, and Bellamy closes his eyes and tries to ignore them. The lights continue to flicker, and the monitors go dead. The shaking gets worse and now sparks are flying everywhere. This ship is something like a hundred years old, and suddenly Bellamy isn't so sure it's going to make it.

Then, as abruptly as it all started, they feel a hard jolt and everything stops. They've landed. Bellamy opens his eyes and stares around at the others in wonder. Everyone seems a little shocked that they didn't die upon re-entry into earth. Nobody says anything for a moment, and then the restraints release and it's a free-for-all.

Frantically, Bellamy pulls himself out of his restraints and stands up, rushing to the front of the group. Bellamy had been seated on the lower level of the ship – the level with the doors – and everyone is clamoring to get outside. It's chaos, and Bellamy decides in that moment that he is going to take charge.

"Hold it!" he cries, putting himself between the teenagers and the door. He holds his hands up. "Just back it up guys!"

Bellamy locates the lever that will open the door and goes to pull it. The sooner the doors are open and everyone starts leaving the ship, the sooner he'll be able to find Octavia.

But then someone yells out "stop" in a voice so commanding, so authoritative, that Bellamy pauses. Is there someone else on board this ship, besides the prisoners, who is actually in charge? Did the ark send someone to lead the teenagers?

The girl pushes towards the front of the crowd, going on about how the air could be toxic and kill them all and Bellamy is annoyed. It's not an adult at all, just another juvenile delinquent. In fact, Bellamy recognizes her as the daughter of one of the council members. Bellamy rolls his eyes. Who does she think she is, bossing him around? Just because her mother is on the council doesn't mean she suddenly gets to be in charge. Bellamy is older, has more life experience. This girl probably spent her earth skills classes passing notes with her friends instead of listening.

Bellamy snaps back a retort and turns again to the lever that will open the doors. He is about to pull it when a familiar voice calls out to him from behind the crowd, softly, but loud enough that he can hear it over the chatter.

"Bellamy?"

Octavia.

Bellamy can barely believe his ears. Of course, he knew she was here somewhere. It was the reason he'd gotten on this ship in the first place. But hearing her voice and seeing her in person was different. It was real.

Bellamy turned around and watched as the crowd parted, making way for Octavia who was pushing her way forward. Bellamy hadn't seen her in months – practically a year – and he found himself shocked at the change he saw in her. She looked so much older than when he'd last seen her. Her hair was down, rather than tied up with a ribbon, and her eyes had this look about them, this look that somewhere along the line she'd lost her innocence and her optimism. But as he continued to stare at his sister, he could see some of the light returning to them. She walked closer to him and then her arms were around him and he was hugging her back, holding her close, determined to never let her go again, to never let anything bad ever happen to Octavia for as long as he was alive.

"Where's your wristband?"

It's that annoying girl again. The one who seems to think she's in charge. Bellamy opens his mouth to tell her to mind her own business, but Octavia answers her instead.

"Do you mind?" she asks. "I haven't seen my brother in a year."

Bellamy is surprised by the harsh tone in Octavia's voice. In all the years he'd known her, she'd always been his sweet little sister. Already from the few moments he'd spent with her, he could tell that the months she'd spent in confinement had hardened her, turned her into someone different than she'd been.

Bellamy doesn't have time to think too long about this though, because Octavia's words have set off the crowd. To have a brother is a rare thing on the ark – almost unheard of – and suddenly everyone is interested in telling the story of how Octavia was kept hidden under the floorboards for fifteen years.

Bellamy looks to the crowd and then to Octavia, worried that she's going to be upset by the gossip that is being spread about her and cry. But Octavia does something Bellamy wouldn't have expected and she lunges toward the crowd. Bellamy grabs her by the arm and pulls her back, shocked at the aggression he's seeing in his sister and determined to put an end to it – to bring her back to who she used to be.

"Let's give them something else to remember you by," Bellamy says to Octavia, trying to re-direct her attention from the crowd and back to him. If he can just get her to focus on him, he knows he can get her to soften. Then he offers her the chance to be the first one to touch the ground and the smile Octavia gives him reminds him of the smile she had when he told her that he was going to take her to that party.

He shakes away that last thought as he turns to pull the lever. This time, there won't be any negative consequences. The ark isn't here anymore. Shumway can't hurt either of them now that they're down on the ground. Bellamy pulls the lever and the door opens, a blinding light appearing through the hole where the door used to be.

For a moment, nobody moves. Everyone just stares at the sight before them. Bellamy watches Octavia mesmerized by the wonder on her face and the anticipation in her slow walk down the ramp towards the ground. She reaches the end of the ramp and jumps off it to the ground, pausing a moment as she revels in the feel of having her feet actually on the earth. And then in one fluid movement, she raises her arms in the air and screams out in glee, "we're back bitches!"

Bellamy can't help the smile that fills his face as the ship full of teenagers goes crazy, everyone pushing forward to rush out and explore the forest before them. Bellamy pushes his way forward too and steps up to Octavia. This time, the look on her face is one Bellamy has never seen before. The joy and the total freedom he sees in her expression blows him away and he happily walks away to let her enjoy it.

As Bellamy walks away and watches everyone else revelling in the wonder that is the ground, he starts to worry. And now that they're all out of immediate danger, he has the time to worry. On the recording, the Chancellor said that the rest of the ark would be following them down once they knew the earth was survivable. The Chancellor also promised in the recording that the juveniles would all be pardoned for their crimes. But Bellamy isn't a juvenile and his crime is worse than the rest of them. If the ark comes down, Bellamy is sure he'll be executed on the spot for treason. And he can't protect Octavia if he's dead.

So Bellamy concludes that there's only one thing he can do. He and Octavia need to leave. The longer they stay here, the harder it will be to leave, so they need to leave right away. He'll grab enough rations to last them a few weeks, and then they'll head out and find a place of their own to settle down in. Somewhere far from the dropship and the one hundred prisoners – ninety-nine, Bellamy supposes, if he brings Octavia with him. The one positive thing about being on the ground, Bellamy realizes, is that unlike on the ark, he and Octavia actually stand a chance of taking off on their own and never being found.

Once the hype of being on the ground starts to die down, Bellamy locates Octavia so that they can get the hell out of there. Soon, someone is going to step up and take charge, and once that happens, the rations they came down with will surely be counted and monitored. Bellamy needs to get out of there before any sort of order is instilled.

"Come with me," Bellamy mutters to Octavia, leading her around to the front of the ship.

Octavia follows willingly enough for now, though Bellamy fears that she might be harder to convince once he reveals his plan in full.

They start to approach the ramp that leads into the dropship to find that an altercation is already occurring. Bellamy is unsurprised to find that the blond girl from earlier is in the thick of it, along with the Chancellor's son. They are arguing with a group of boys who appear as though they would like to declare themselves in charge.

Bellamy hears the Chancellor's son – Wells, he recalls – say something about trying to figure out where they all are and Bellamy feels himself getting annoyed. Why not let the group of boys be in charge? Why do Wells and the blonde seem to think that they're automatically in charge, just because of who their parents are? Suddenly, without even meaning to, Bellamy is calling out.

"We're on the ground. That not good enough for you?" he demands.

Wells walks forward and starts making some speech about following the Chancellor's directives and locating Mount Weather and then Octavia responds, sounding just as annoyed as Bellamy does with the way these two seem to think that they know better than the rest of them what to do. The blonde claims not to care who's in charge and Bellamy finds that laughable. Of course she wants to be in charge, or else she wouldn't be making such a big scene and she'd just be enjoying the trees and the grass and the dirt like the rest of the teenagers. Instead, she claims that everyone needs to pick up and follow her on a trek through the forest to Mount Weather, where the Chancellor claims there are supplies.

And Bellamy is so fed up with this girl that he speaks up again.

"I've got a better idea," he says. "You two go, find it for us. Let the privileged do the hard work for a change."

Everyone who's listening seems to agree that the son and daughter of the elites on the ark need to be punished and turn subservient to the rest of them, but honestly, all Bellamy wants is for Wells and the blonde girl to go away, at least until Bellamy can get Octavia to leave with him. The blonde claims the trek to Mount Weather is twenty miles, so hopefully by the time they return, Bellamy will be long gone.

Wells protests this, of course, and then a fight breaks out between him and the apparent leader of the other group. Bellamy tries to pull Octavia away, figuring that this would be a perfect opportunity to slip away unnoticed, but Octavia pulls her arm from his grasp, wanting to stay and watch the fight unfold. Bellamy rolls his eyes, but doesn't fight Octavia on this, figuring that if he was about to pull her away from the only society on earth, the least he could do was let her witness one lousy fight.

The fight doesn't last long though, some guy with long hair jumping down off the top of the dropship and inserting himself between the two parties. He turns to the angry boy and points out that Wells has a bad leg, and that the fight is hardly fair. The boy considers his options for a moment and then backs off, probably deciding that it wouldn't look too good to fight a crippled kid.

Bellamy turns back to Octavia, ready to suggest they leave now that the fight is over and there's nothing left to watch, but it turns out Octavia has left, and is walking over towards the boy with the long hair.

"Hey spacewalker!" she cries out. "Rescue me next."

The way Octavia says it has Bellamy cringing on the inside. The look she gave him, the sultry tone she used – she was flirting with the long-haired delinquent boy! And Bellamy doesn't like it. When did she even learn about flirting? When did she even start thinking about boys like that?

Bellamy walks up to Octavia and gives her a disapproving look. His hope is to make her feel ashamed for her overt display. He wants her to realize that her behavior was inappropriate and that she shouldn't be acting like that. Instead, she sizes Bellamy up, demanding "what? He's cute."

Bellamy tries to reason with her, but Octavia is insistent that there's nothing wrong with flirting with a criminal.

"Look O, I came down here to protect you," Bellamy says, grabbing Octavia's arm and pulling her away. He'd tried to play nice, tried to be patient with Octavia, but enough is enough. If Octavia's going to be difficult, then Bellamy's not going to give her a choice.

"I don't need protecting!" Octavia cries, pulling her arm out of Bellamy's grasp again. She goes on to yell about how she's spent her whole life locked up and how she needs to just enjoy life, and Bellamy knows that she has a point. And Bellamy realizes that he can't expect Octavia to ever be the same girl she was before she was confined because that girl was always locked up, afraid. And what Bellamy wants even more than for Octavia to be her old self again is for her to be happy and free.

But they still need to leave.

"I can't stay with them O," he says, trying to figure out how to tell her what he's done. While he needs to explain why they need to leave, he's not ready to tell his little sister about the horrible action he's committed. He knows he'll have to tell her eventually, but he also knows that once he tells her, she'll never see him the same way again.

"Can we just stay a couple of days?" Octavia asks once she's agreed to leave. "I'll go with you, we'll leave, but can't we stay here a little longer?"

Bellamy considers her request for a moment. On the one hand, the longer they stay, the harder it'll be to leave. Once rationing starts – and it surely will – it'll get more and more difficult to steal away with any food. And they would need rations in order to make it long enough to figure out how to eat off the land, as they would eventually have to do. But on the other hand, Octavia had never had the opportunity to just be a teenager with other teenagers her age. Like she'd said, she'd been locked up one way or another all her life. Bellamy supposes he could give her a couple of days.

"Fine," Bellamy agrees. "But when I say it's time, we go, clear?"

"Fine," Octavia mutters, not seeming altogether happy about it, but trusting Bellamy was doing the right thing for the both of them.

With that decided, Bellamy now needs to figure out what he was going to do for the next couple of days. He supposes he could just hang around like the teenagers, or he could try scouting out potential places he and Octavia could go, stash some rations in nearby caves to grab when they finally did leave.

He turns back to tell Octavia as much, only to find her walking towards Wells, the blonde girl, and the long-haired boy, who seem to be planning their mission to Mount Weather.

"Sounds like a party! Make it five," she declares, joining the group.

Clenching his jaw, Bellamy runs over to her.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" he demands. He'd agreed that they could stay at camp for a few more days. He'd said nothing about letting Octavia venture out into the unknown forest with a bunch of teenage criminals as her company.

Before he can get into it with Octavia though, he's distracted by the blonde girl yelling at the long-haired boy about his wristband. She claims that the wristbands all the juveniles were wearing are transmitting their vital signs back to the ark and that the adults will only follow them all down so long as they remain alive. If the wristbands are removed, the ark will think they were all dead and that the earth isn't survivable.

This gives Bellamy an idea.

If he can convince the other teenagers to take off their wristbands, then the ark would never follow them all down. They'd be free of the ark's tyrannical rule, and best of all, Bellamy and Octavia would be free to live life with the rest of them. Without anyone to come down and reveal Bellamy's crime, it would be like it had never happened. Bellamy could really start over.

When the group starts to head out, Bellamy doesn't even care if Octavia goes with them. How dangerous could it be, after all, to go for a walk on an uninhabited earth? Besides, what Bellamy needs to accomplish here in the camp will be easier done without Octavia hanging around and judging his every move. With her and the blonde girl both gone for the day, Bellamy can seize control of the camp and do what he needs to do.

"Go on," he mutters to Octavia.

It's just an added bonus that Octavia thinks he's letting her go simply because she wants to.

He watches Octavia walk out into the forest, waits until the five of them going on the expedition all become dots in the distance, and then he turns around to face the camp once again, ready to get to work.

The first thing he needs to do is to locate the strongest members of the group. The ones who would naturally try to take leadership power. If Bellamy can get them on his side, he'll have the whole camp in no time. If not, their opposition might be his undoing.

Bellamy decides to do a lap around the camp and check out some of the others that he came down with. One obstacle Bellamy realizes he's going to have to face is that these prisoners all seem to be friends already. As a general rule, everyone here is between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, with a few exceptions for younger kids. Most people on the ark don't commit arrestable infractions until they're at least fourteen, and at eighteen, they get reviewed and are either released or floated. So these teenagers would have all known each other even before their confinements. They would have grown up together, attended classes and social events on the ark together. Being significantly older than them – already twenty-three – Bellamy would be at a disadvantage. After all, it's harder to get people to trust you when they don't know you.

As Bellamy takes his walk, he notices a few important things. One is that a lot of the teenagers are sitting alone, sad or crying. This tells Bellamy that the euphoria of being on the ground has worn off and they've realized that their parents and loved ones remain up on the ark, far away from here. Bellamy suspects that this will pose a challenge once he starts trying to convince people to take off their wristbands. He won't only be convincing them to leave behind the rules and the authority of the ark's council, but he'd be convincing them to leave behind everyone they've ever known, all their friends and family. That wouldn't be easy.

The second thing Bellamy notices is that some people have already somehow managed to get into the rations and are gorging themselves on the food they brought down with them from the ark. This poses an entirely different problem, and one Bellamy can't address until he's found a way to put himself in charge here. But he knows that he's going to have to act fast, because if they run through their rations before they find another food source, then starvation is going to be an issue too.

The final thing Bellamy notices is that nobody really seems to know what to do with themselves. Apart from the blonde girl and the small group she took with her to find Mount Weather, nobody is making an effort to do anything productive, anything that might ensure their continued survival down here. Thinking back to his earth skills classes so many years ago, Bellamy recalls that fire and shelter are two things that they are all going to desperately need come nightfall when the temperature drops. Of course, nobody here has ever even experienced randomly fluctuating temperatures, so why would they think to prepare for that now? On the ark, there was one pre-set temperature and that was that.

Bellamy decides to pop into the dropship and take an inventory of the supplies they do have, to get an idea of what they're going to be working with. As he approaches the dropship though, he stops when he sees an altercation break out between Wells and two of the boys who were challenging him earlier. Apparently, they are threatening to kill him or something, but in the end, Wells just walks away.

Bellamy knows immediately that these are the boys he needs to win over first.

"If you're going to kill someone, it's probably best not to announce it," Bellamy greets them. He decides on this greeting because it indicates that he's not necessarily against them killing Wells. Of course, he is against killing, but if he's going to win these boys over, he needs to appear to be on their side.

"You're not really a member of the guard, are you?" one of the boys asks. Bellamy nods. He'd figured his guardsman's uniform could be a benefit to him in one of two ways. Either people would take comfort in the presence of a guardsman, or people would respect him as one of their own for impersonating a guardsman and therefore also being a criminal. Bellamy supposes it's avenue number two.

He takes his chance right there to plant the idea in the boys' heads about the ark not fulfilling it's promise of a second chance once they come down. He paints a picture for them of what life might look like if the ark and the council were to follow them to the ground and take over. And when he can see them getting angry, he goes for the final straw and demands why they're still wearing their wristbands.

"Okay, you said we could stop it," the first boy says. "How?"

"Take them off," Bellamy replies. He can see them considering it and he stands his ground. He drives the point home and then waits to see their response.

"And if we do…" the boy muses. "I mean, what's in it for us?"

Bellamy smirks. "Someone's got to help me run things," he declares.

And he walks away. It's perfect. Not only had he given the boys all the reason they need to take off their wristbands, but he planted the idea that he's in charge and indirectly handed them second and third in command. Now he just has to wait and see if they'll take the bait.

Bellamy slips into the dropship, back to his original mission of taking inventory of their supplies. Already he can see the results of the scavenging the others have already done and he sighs to himself as he picks through what's left. It isn't much in the way of food. But there are still tents and some medical supplies, and Bellamy's sure he can repurpose some of the other materials around the dropship. The restraints, for example, could be useful as makeshift rope.

Footsteps approaching him from behind alert him to the fact that Bellamy isn't alone anymore. He rises and turns around to find the two boys from earlier standing before him. They toss something at his feet and he looks down to find that they have managed to cut off their wristbands.

"So now what?" the one who's done all the talking so far demands.

"Well, first thing's first," Bellamy declares. "What are your names?" Being the only one around here who doesn't already know everyone is becoming a disadvantage and Bellamy needs to start putting names to faces. He discovers that the first is named John Murphy and the other John Mbege. He decides to just call them Murphy and Mbege.

"Alright, we've got two main priorities," Bellamy declares, deciding that he needs to start with the most important stuff and work his way from there. "We need to build a fire before it gets dark, and we need to get everyone to take off those damn wristbands." Shelter isn't too big of an issue. Though it would be tight, if need be, they could all sleep in the dropship. If it didn't rain, they could sleep outdoors for the night. As for food – there's no point trying to re-collect it, since it's probably all eaten anyway. Once it becomes an issue, Bellamy figures he can find an alternative food source. Or there's always the rations in Mount Weather to hope for, though Bellamy doesn't want to put all his hopes in that one basket quite yet.

Murphy and Mbege take on their assigned tasks with fervor. They immediately head out of the dropship and start ordering people to go collect firewood. While they're occupied with that, Bellamy collects everything useful he can find in the dropship and stores it up on the third level in a hidden cabinet that he finds, hoping that it'll be safe there from foraging teenagers. Once he's finished with his task, he heads back outside to see how things are going.

It's starting to get dark out now – the sun is setting, and many people are just standing there, watching it disappear behind the trees. Bellamy knows that as soon as it's gone, there won't be any light left besides that of the moon, and so he goes to check on the progress of the fire.

"We've got the firewood," Murphy says when Bellamy questions why he hasn't gotten it started yet. "But we can't get the damn thing to light."

"Try these," Bellamy mutters, tossing him a pack of matches. Murphy had been trying to do the thing where friction between two pieces of wood creates a spark, like how they'd been taught in earth skills classes. They would probably need to learn to do that eventually, once the matches run out. But for now, Bellamy just needs them to get the fire going.

With the matches, starting the fire is easy, and soon they're building it up into a bonfire. The other teenagers are gathering around the fire, some out of curiosity, and some because it's starting to get colder and the fire is warm. Bellamy decides that this is the perfect opportunity to address the group as one.

"Everyone gather in," he calls out to those still out on the fringes. He waits until everyone is close before speaking again. "It's been a rough day," he says, knowing that he needs to be sympathetic to get the more sensitive ones – the ones that aren't like Murphy and Mbege – to follow him. "But we're here, and we're alive!"

A cheer follows this, and Bellamy is a little surprised, but pleased. It might be easier than he thought to get them to listen to him. Most of them aren't leaders themselves and are looking for someone to take charge. Bellamy is happy to fill that position.

"The ark thought they could throw us on a ship and toss us out of the ark like yesterday's garbage!" Bellamy cries, causing another reaction, sort of like a loud booing, which Bellamy knows is directed at the ark. "They don't think we're good enough for them. But what I know, and what all of you know too, is that we're better off without them!"

The crowd cheers again, and Bellamy starts to feel a bit odd. Never before has he led people like this, but somehow it comes naturally to him.

"Let's show them that we don't need them anymore. Let's take off our wristbands and send the message that we control our own lives now. Who's with me?"

The cheer the crowd gives to that one is music to Bellamy's ears. He'd thought it would be hard to convince people to take off their wristbands, but maybe it wouldn't be hard at all.

"You two want to do the honors?" Bellamy offers his second and third in commands. He knows he has to keep them happy if he wants them to continue supporting his authority and figures that they might as well be the ones to cut off the wristbands.

Murphy steps up to the front eagerly.

"Alright who's first?" he calls out, pulling out a knife he must have taken from the dropship and holding it out in front of the fire so that the reflection glistened in the dark.

A boy – who Bellamy deduces is named Anthony from the cheers he gets – steps forward and holds out his arm. Mbege grabs a nearby rock and drops it on the ground in front of the fire, indicating that Anthony should place his arm on the flat surface at the top of the rock. He does so, and Mbege holds the arm down while Murphy readies the knife.

"This isn't going to hurt, is it?" Anthony asks, looking up at the two boys nervously.

Murphy twirls his knife and steps closer. "Just close your eyes and it'll be over in a second," he says.

Then Murphy bends down, inserts the knife between his arm and the wristband, and pulls up on the knife until the mechanism disengages and the wristband breaks apart.

Bellamy steps in and grabs the broken wristband from the rock and holds it up in the air for all to see.

"Anthony has been liberated!" he cries, tossing the wristband into the fire. "Who's next?"

The cheering of the crowd is now deafening, and with the first wristband removed painlessly, the rest start clamoring for their turn to be freed of the grip the ark has over them all. They get through about ten wristbands before they face any opposition. And unsurprising to Bellamy, the opposition comes in the form of Wells, returning from his trip to look for fresh water.

"What the hell are you doing?" Wells demands.

Bellamy tries to shut Wells down quickly. He knows that if Wells gets the chance to speak too long, some of the others might actually listen to him. For now, Bellamy is in charge. But only because everyone's looking for a leader and he's the only one to have stepped up. He has to squash Wells before he makes himself into an alternate potential leader.

Unfortunately, Wells is already starting with the speech-making, going on about needing the ark to come down for survival. He claims that they need the ark's expertise – that a bunch of teenagers who know nothing about farming or medicine couldn't possibly survive long on their own. Bellamy has to admit that Wells might be right. As a whole, the group would stand a better chance of surviving by leaving the wristbands on. But Bellamy can't think about the group as a whole. He has to think about Octavia. And if the ark were to come down and execute him, which would surely be their first action on the ground, he wouldn't be able to protect Octavia anymore. So he has to make sure the ark stays put.

And then Wells gives Bellamy the perfect transition into a speech of his own. Wells asks how Bellamy could not want his own people to come home to earth with the rest of them. And Bellamy knows exactly how to ensure that nobody shifts their allegiance to Wells, son of the late Chancellor.

"My people are already down," Bellamy says. "Those people," he points to the sky, "locked my people up." He walks towards Wells and decides to drive the point home by getting personal. It's hard for Bellamy, to say it out loud in front of so many people he doesn't know. But he knows that if he reveals some of himself, people will be able to empathize, to look at their own situation and his and to feel allegiance to Bellamy. "Those people killed my mother for the crime of having a second child." And finally, Bellamy turns Wells into the enemy. "Your father did that," he says.

Wells tries to defend his father, but it's no use. Bellamy can feel the support of the group. He can feel their fear and their anger, all now being directed at Wells. Bellamy knows that Wells has lost. And so does Wells.

"Here, there are no laws!" Bellamy cries. "Here, we do whatever the hell we want, whenever the hell we want!" The crowd cheers with him and soon everyone is chanting this new slogan, which Bellamy didn't even realize he was creating when he said it.

Bellamy looks around at the crowd with a smile on his face. Somehow, he's done it. Somehow, he's managed to insert himself as the unofficial leader of these hundred teenagers, and they've accepted him as such. At first, Bellamy's only real concern had been making sure that everyone removed their wristbands to prevent the ark from coming down. But now he realizes that he can do even more with the power he now has. As leader of the group, he'll be in the best position to ensure Octavia's safety and wellbeing.

He looks back at Wells, and finds the boy looking horrified. But Bellamy doesn't care. Wells is only one person, and Bellamy will deal with him if the need presents itself. For now, he's just the hated son of the Chancellor and nothing more.

Suddenly, there's a loud growling sound coming from the sky, and water begins to fall everywhere. Rain. First, there is some screaming, because not everyone immediately realizes what is happening. But in moments, the cries are shouts of glee and joy as they revel in this wonderful new experience.

Wells makes one final comment about needing to collect the rainwater, but Bellamy dismisses him. The earth is huge and plentiful. They'll find a fresh water source tomorrow. For now, Bellamy allows everyone to simply enjoy themselves. If Bellamy is going to be a leader, he's not going to by tyrannical like the council on the ark. Bellamy's not going to control every aspect of people's lives. When he'd said 'whatever the hell we want' before, he'd meant it. Freedom would be the new law. Octavia would want it that way.

Bellamy lifts his head and opens his mouth, allowing the water to fill it. Once enough has gathered, he closes his mouth and swallows, feeling the cool water running through his throat and settling in his stomach. He realizes that he hasn't had anything to drink since the water he drank while on his break, even before Shumway showed up at his door with he gun. Then he realizes that Wells was right about collecting the rainwater and glances over in the direction Wells walked away, relieved to find that Wells is in the process of fashioning a container that will hold some of the rainwater.

"Damn," Bellamy mutters to himself. Wells might not be in charge yet, but if it turns out that he knows better than Bellamy how to survive on this planet – if people realize that Bellamy doesn't have a clue what he's doing – then they'll turn.

"Hey Bellamy," Murphy calls out, walking over to where Bellamy is standing. "We've got a problem."

"What now?" Bellamy demands, tired of having to deal with so many things.

"Well after the prince's speech, some of the others aren't too keen on shedding their wristbands quite yet. They say they want to think about it first," Murphy replies.

Bellamy clenches his teeth. So, Wells did make an impression after all. He'd hoped differently, but he supposed it was inevitable that out of a hundred people, at least a few were having second thoughts.

"We need to get his wristband," Bellamy declares. "Once people see that his is gone, they'll be more willing to take off theirs."

"Not to mention as long as the Chancellor thinks his son is alive down here, there's no chance he'll call off sending more people down," Murphy adds.

Bellamy decides not to mention that this isn't a particular concern. With the Chancellor dead, there's nobody left on the ark to mourn Wells' death. But it doesn't mean that the people still on the ark won't be affected by the death of the late Chancellor's son. The rest of them, the criminals, the children of janitors and farmers, their lives aren't important. But the children of the elites – those deaths would be the best to make an impression on the council and whoever the new Chancellor is.

"Tonight," Bellamy declares. "I'll lure him away from camp. You be ready to use force if he's not cooperative. Bring some others with you. Mbege and maybe a couple others you trust."

Murphy nods his understanding and returns to the crowd, where he and Mbege continue to remove the wristbands of those willing to have them cut off. The rain still hasn't let up, so Bellamy heads over to the dropship, already annoyed at being stuck under a constant stream of water. He feels like he's stuck in the shower with no way of getting out. Not to mention he's fully clothed and now he's soaked. Bellamy decides that rain is overrated.

There are others in the dropship when Bellamy arrives. They too appear to be seeking shelter from the rain, most of them huddling together on the main level. Since Bellamy isn't in the mood to strike up a conversation with anyone, he goes to the ladder and climbs up to the top level where he stashed all the supplies earlier that day. He is pleased to find his stash remains untouched and nobody is up on the top level yet.

Bellamy chooses one of the more comfortable looking seats and sits down in it. He stretches his feet out and leans his head back and closes his eyes. It's been a long day and Bellamy is exhausted. After everything that's happened, Bellamy just needs a moment to himself to collect his thoughts and rest a bit.

As he sits there, he listens to the clinking of the rain on the metal of the dropship and is reminded how nothing will ever be the same again. He is on the ground. He will never live on the ark again. He'll never watch another moonrise from the large window down the hall from his quarters. He'll never again sleep in his own bed, or sit in that chair that Octavia always used to sit in. He'll never have to dump garbage down the garbage chute again. And the thing about being on the ground that scares Bellamy a little bit is the unpredictability. He has no idea what's going to happen tomorrow or the next day or the next. He has no idea what earth is really like anymore. Sure, he'd read about it in classes and been told by teachers what it was like, but that was the old earth, from before the nuclear apocalypse. This earth is new and unfamiliar, and the job now falls to Bellamy to figure out how to navigate it.

And then there's Octavia. No longer the sweet, shy little girl he'd helped raise. Now hardened by her time in the sky box, Octavia is angry and aggressive and strangely adventurous. She says she needs her freedom, and Bellamy wants to give it to her. But the problem is that she hasn't lived enough to know how to handle her own freedom. For now, she is safe enough on a mission to bring back food from Mount Weather. But once she returns, Bellamy wonders whether she will ever be able to fit into normal society – or whatever Bellamy manages to pass off as normal society in these circumstances. After all, she's never lived in normal society before.

Bellamy waits up in the dropship, running through his many thoughts, until the commotion outside starts to die down. He doesn't allow himself to fall asleep – he still has work to do tonight. And once he's confident that most people are asleep, or at least attempting sleep, he gets up and exits the dropship, taking hold of his gun and praying he doesn't have to use it.

Once he's outside, he is able to confirm that most everyone has found a spot – either inside the dropship or outside on the damp ground – to curl up for the night. The fire is long burnt out – the rain wouldn't have helped it there – and Bellamy finds the darkness to be an advantage.

He locates Wells sleeping against a tree, and then searches for Murphy, who he finds sitting in a group with some other boys, Mbege among them. Bellamy nods in Murphy's direction and waits for the four boys to stand up and take their positions. They will follow Bellamy and Wells away from camp, and on Bellamy's signal, they will attack if necessary.

Bellamy approaches Wells and lunges at him, covering his mouth so that he can't scream. Wells is immediately awake, fighting against the hold Bellamy has on him. Bellamy expects this, and holds up his gun to show Wells that he's not playing games. Wells' eyes go wide, but he stills, his gaze completely focused on the gun and the fear in his eyes shining bright. Bellamy hates having to use his gun at all, even as a prop. But he knows it's one of the best advantages he's got, and he's not about to waste it.

He leads Wells far from camp, not wanting anyone to accidentally stumble upon them on a late-night bathroom run or something. Bellamy lets Wells lead while he follows, the gun trained on the boy's back. Bellamy is confident that Murphy, Mbege, and the others are following, even though they remain invisible for the time being.

Once they are sufficiently far from camp that the sound of a gunshot wouldn't make it back to anyone's ears, Bellamy calls for Wells to stop. He tells Wells that he doesn't want to shoot him, but that he needs Wells to remove his wristband. Wells is immediately suspicious, but Bellamy isn't about to reveal his reasons to a boy he doesn't trust. Especially since Octavia doesn't even know the whole truth.

Bellamy tries to convince Wells to take off his wristband voluntarily. It'll be better all around if Wells just cooperates. If Bellamy can get Wells on his side, then the dissention will be wiped out immediately. If he takes Wells' wristband by force, the dissenters would still have cause to keep their wristbands on and more force might eventually be required. Bellamy doesn't want to be the kind of leader that forces compliance with violence, but if he has to do it to ensure Octavia's safety, then he'll do it.

Wells makes it clear that cooperation is not an option and Bellamy isn't altogether surprised. While he'd hoped for an easy out here, he'd known that it was an unlikely outcome. It's why he brought Murphy and the other boys, after all.

Behind Wells, Bellamy sees Murphy step out from behind a bush and raise his eyebrows. Bellamy gives him the nod, and Murphy approaches, the others not far behind. Bellamy stows his gun, knowing that he won't need it anymore and watches as Wells tries and fails to run away. He really had no chance anyway, with the bag leg.

The boys grab him and pin him down and Wells cries out for them to stop, to let him go. Bellamy hates himself a little in this moment, as he watches Wells' free will be stripped away from him. For all Bellamy's claims, to the hundred and to himself, of being a ruler who prioritizes individual freedom, he realizes that it's a lie. Because in this situation, Wells' freedom takes a backseat to Bellamy's agenda. And it goes against everything he thought he believed in.

Murphy takes out his knife and once Wells' arm is pinned down on the ground, he walks over, inserts the knife between his arm and the wristband. As he starts to move the knife, to break the wristband, Bellamy turns around and walks away. He can't watch the rest of it. He doesn't want to be there when it's over. And most of all, he can't let Murphy, Mbege, or the others think he's weak in any way. So like the coward he knows he is, he walks back to the dropship, climbs back up to the third floor, – which remains unoccupied save for him – locks the trapdoor behind him, and settles back down in the hopes of getting a little sleep before morning.


	2. Earth Skills

Chapter 2: Earth Skills

Sometime in the night, Bellamy wakes with a full bladder. He's been expecting this. Ever since the rain came and Bellamy drank, he's known that he'd eventually have to relieve himself. He's not super excited about the prospect of going in the forest though.

He moves to unlock the trapdoor and lowers himself down to the main level. Picking his way through a floor-full of sleeping teenagers, he makes his way to the dropship door and then hurries away from camp. He doesn't want to go too far, because the terrain is still new to him and he doesn't want to get lost. He also doesn't want to stop too close to camp at the risk of someone stumbling across him in his compromised state. Once he finds a suitable tree, he does his business and then starts making his way back towards the dropship.

As he nears the dropship door, an unfamiliar voice stops him in his tracks.

"Bellamy?"

It's a girl Bellamy has never met before. Or at least, he can't remember having met her. She's tall, with dark hair – beautiful. Yet all Bellamy can think is that whatever her problem, why couldn't it wait until morning?

"What do you want?" Bellamy demands, eager to get back to the solitude of the third level and maybe get some sleep. Octavia and the others would be back tomorrow with food, and Bellamy would have to find a way to ration it, to prevent it all from being eaten right away like the food they'd brought down with them from the ark.

"Oh, well it's just that… well it's kind of lonely sleeping out here on the grass, all alone," the girl says in a strange tone.

"Sleep in the dropship then," Bellamy mutters, annoyed at the girl for bothering him with something so trivial. "There lots of people in there."

"Are you sleeping in the dropship?" the girl asks, taking a step forward. Suddenly, Bellamy realizes what this girl is really asking and he takes a step back.

"I don't think this is a good – " Bellamy starts to protest, but the girl doesn't wait for an answer before throwing herself on Bellamy and latching her lips onto his.

Bellamy resists for only a moment before giving into the feeling of the girl's lips moving against his and her body pressing up against his. Whatever the hell we want, Bellamy figures. And right then, what Bellamy wants is this girl.

"I've got the top level of the dropship all to myself," Bellamy informs her in between kisses.

"Great," the girl replies. "Lead the way."

It takes a lot of effort for Bellamy to let go of the girl long enough to climb the ladder up to the top floor of the dropship. As soon as they have arrived and the trapdoor is locked – Bellamy certainly doesn't want to be interrupted now – they attack each other, pulling off each other's clothes and clawing at each other in an attempt to bring themselves even closer together.

When it's over, the girl falls asleep almost right away, but Bellamy lies awake awhile longer. He wonders whether it was fair to the girl, to use her like he did. She might be hoping for some kind of commitment now – something Bellamy just isn't prepared to offer. But then again, she did come to him, so Bellamy figures they're at least equally responsible for what just happened.

Bellamy had never been this kind of guy before. Sure, he'd slept with girls before, but only ones he was already involved with. He'd never been the one-night-stand kind of guy before. But now that they're on the ground, the rules are changing. Bellamy figures that maybe this is just something he's going to have to get used to. After all, the chances that the girl of his dreams had come down in a ship full of juvenile delinquents is so slight – and if Bellamy succeeds in his plans, this group of teenagers will be the only humans Bellamy will have contact with for the rest of his life. So maybe random hookups are how Bellamy will spend his time from now on. At the very least, it'll sure beat a life of celibacy.

Eventually, Bellamy manages to calm his thoughts long enough to get a few hours of sleep, only waking up when he hears a commotion brewing outside. Groaning in protest at his sore body – sleeping on a metal floor certainly hadn't been Bellamy's best idea ever – Bellamy pushes himself upright and wakes the girl, insisting that it is now time for her to go.

The girl seems sad to be dismissed so early, but she gets up willingly enough, pulling her pants and her bra back on while Bellamy similarly redresses himself. He can't find his shirt but decides that he doesn't need it anyway.

Bellamy unlocks the trapdoor and lowers himself down the ladder, confident that the girl will follow him down. As he gets closer to the main level, he starts to be able to hear what the commotion outside is about. He can make out the voice of Wells arguing with another boy, apparently over fair distribution of supplies. Bellamy rolls his eyes. What makes Wells think he's in any way in charge around here? No matter how many times Bellamy shows him differently, Wells keep coming back with some new idea. Bellamy knows he needs to shut Wells down, get him to fade into the background. But the task is proving much harder than it ever seemed.

"You still don't get it, do you Chancellor?" Bellamy demands, walking out of the dropship to come face to face with Wells and one of the boys who helped to remove Wells' wristband last night. Bellamy recalls that his name is Atom. He uses the title Chancellor in a mocking tone and he can tell by Wells' expression that he doesn't appreciate it.

The girl appears behind Bellamy and touches a hand to his back. More for the spectacle of it than because he actually cares, Bellamy kisses her once before sending her on her way. It occurs to Bellamy that he doesn't even know her name, but he can't dwell on that right now.

"This is home now. Your father's rules no longer apply." If Bellamy is going to squash Wells' apparent need to take control, he has to make it clear that Wells' claim to leadership – his heritage – means nothing now.

He grabs something from Wells – a shirt he notes – and Wells lunges for him. Atom holds him off, but Bellamy stops him, telling Wells that if he wants the shirt back, he can come and get it himself. He knows that Wells won't bother trying. With his bad leg, he doesn't stand a chance.

Wells stares him down for a while, maybe thinking that he can intimidate Bellamy. He can't. Eventually, Wells gives in, tossing the rest of the clothes onto the ground behind him for anyone to grab and victoriously, Bellamy pulls his newfound shirt over his head.

While Bellamy realizes that Wells is right about sharing based on need – about rationing their supplies – it's more important for Bellamy to maintain his authority. He can worry about rationing later.

A scream from nearby alerts Bellamy to a new situation and he hurries in the direction of the noise, hoping it's something he can deal with easily. Bellamy's getting tired of having to take care of everything around here, but he supposes that's what it means to be in charge. It's something he'll just have to get used to.

When he arrives at the scene, he finds Murphy holding a girl over a small fire he's started. Murphy claims that his goal is to trick the ark into thinking they're all actually dying of radiation. Being fine one minute and dead the next only tells the ark that they're dying. If they suffer a little first, it'll look like a reaction to radiation and the ark would never follow them down.

Though Bellamy doesn't like the idea of making teenagers suffer by being held over a fire, he has to admit that Murphy's idea makes sense. He's doing exactly what Bellamy needs him to do – he's ensuring beyond a doubt that the ark will never try sending anyone down here again – or at least not for a very long time.

Predictably, Wells jumps right into the fray, pushing Murphy off the girl and insisting that Bellamy needs to stop the chaos. Bellamy snaps back a retort and then Murphy is back on his feet and throws a punch right at Wells. Bellamy smiles and stands back. If he can't squash Wells with words, maybe Murphy can do it with some violence.

At first, Murphy is winning, just as Bellamy would have expected. With Wells' bad leg, he hardly stands a chance in a fistfight. But then somehow, Wells gains the upper hand and Bellamy panics. With Murphy lying on the ground and Wells standing over him, Wells is anything but squashed. Then Murphy rolls over and grabs a knife, standing up and advancing on Wells in a fury.

Bellamy knows that with a knife, Murphy will surely win. But he also realizes that if he allows Wells to be beaten on unfair terms, people won't respect him. There's no risk in giving Wells a knife anyway. Murphy surely knows better than Wells how to use one.

So Bellamy intervenes, drops a knife by Wells' feet, and then steps back to allow the fight to continue. Wells picks it up, but Bellamy can tell by the fear in his eyes that he doesn't want to fight this way. But then he's winning the fight again and Bellamy is worried. Where did this sudden strength come from? From what he'd seen, Wells had always seemed weak, physically.

The fight is mercifully interrupted by the blonde girl running into the clearing where the fight is taking place, yelling at Wells to let Murphy go. She apparently is not impressed by the knife fight.

The boy with the long hair is by her side, and then behind them, Octavia and the small, skinny boy appear. Octavia is leaning against the skinny boy and limping and Bellamy frowns.

"Octavia!" Bellamy cries, forgetting about everything else that's going on and running to his sister. "Are you alright?" He takes Octavia from the skinny boy and she wraps her arm around his shoulder as she leans against him, putting all her weight onto him. She's panting from the exertion and Bellamy wants to know what happened, but realizes that there's a more pressing matter at hand. None of them are carrying anything.

"Where's the food?" he demands, looking to the blonde girl. As the self-processed expert on Mount Weather, he holds her responsible for going out on this mission that ended up with Octavia getting hurt, only to come back empty handed.

And then they reveal something that has Bellamy chilled to the bone. There are others on the ground. Other humans. And they are hostile. And worst of all, the fifth member of their party – who Bellamy didn't even remember – has been taken by them.

Next to him Octavia is shaking, and he wonders if her injury was sustained in this attack by the grounders. Bellamy hates himself for having let her go – he should never have let her wander around on an earth he knew nothing about. And yet the only thought he can really think is how glad he is that it wasn't her that got taken by the grounders.

Before Bellamy can even fully process the reality of sharing the ground with a bunch of grounders, the blonde girl has turned on him, having noticed Wells' missing wristband and demanding how many have been removed.

Bellamy can't answer. Now that there's an untold number of grounders out there, possibly getting ready to attack, Bellamy wonders if maybe they should be hoping for the ark to come down. At the very least the ark could bring down weapons. As it is, the only real weapon any of them have is Bellamy's gun. And he's already used one of the bullets.

Murphy answers for him and then blonde girl is making the exact speech that Bellamy has just been thinking. Bellamy can tell that blonde girl is making an impact on the hundred, because their expressions are fixed on her and they're listening intently. And in a split second, Bellamy makes a decision to carry on with his mission. He realizes it might not be fair for the others. He realizes that by making this decision, he's probably condemning most of them to death. But he stands a better chance of staying alive facing the grounders alone than he does allowing the ark to come to earth. And as always, staying alive to protect Octavia is his number one priority.

So once blonde girl has said her piece, Bellamy steps forward to make a speech of his own. He reminds everyone that blonde girl isn't one of them. With her mother on the council, she's an elite, while the rest of them are just criminals in the ark's eyes. Bellamy likens the wristbands to prisons and he knows that this analogy will strike a chord with former prisoners. He knows he has them when he starts hearing small cheers. And in no time, Bellamy has won and blonde girl stalks away angrily, leaving Bellamy amidst a bunch of riled up, cheering teenagers.

Having finished his speech, Bellamy turns to Octavia.

"Come on, let's get you out of here," he says. He reaches for Octavia once more and lets her lean on him while she hobbles out of the clearing and closer to the dropship and their camp site.

After going only a short distance, Octavia stumbles and almost falls. Bellamy has to act fast to catch her and then he sits her down on a fallen tree. He'd hoped to get her into the dropship, up to the third level where they could have had some privacy. Unfortunately, he realizes that she's not going to make it that far and he's going to have to assess the damage out here in the open.

"What's hurt?" he asks. He knows it's her leg or foot, based on the hobbling and the need for a human crutch, but beyond that he can't tell.

Octavia winces as she pulls up her pant leg and Bellamy clenches his jaw when he sees the large gash across her thigh. Whoever did this is going to pay, Bellamy declares to himself. Nobody hurts his sister and gets away with it.

"We need to clean it out," Bellamy announces, already nervous that an infection could have started to spread. Down here on the ground, the air isn't purified like on the ark. Any number of things could be floating around in it, not to mention what could have been on the thing that cut Octavia's leg open.

"Clarke already took care of it," Octavia says, showing Bellamy the strip of fabric that is tied around her leg just below the gash – a makeshift tourniquet.

"Clarke?" Bellamy frowns, unsure who Octavia is referring to. He knows it must be one of the people out on the trip with her, but he still hasn't learned many names.

"Yeah, her mom's a doctor on the ark. She knows some stuff," Octavia replies.

Bellamy nods. He concludes that Octavia is talking about blonde girl, since she was the only other girl on the mission besides Octavia. Since Bellamy doesn't particularly like or trust blonde girl, he decides to clean the wound out again himself and instructs Octavia to stay put until he returns.

He walks over to the side of the dropship where Wells set up the containers last night to accumulate the falling rainwater. Loathe as Bellamy is to admit it, he's eternally grateful that Wells took the initiative to collect some, because otherwise Bellamy would have nothing to clean out Octavia's wound with – they still hadn't found a nearby source of freshwater. He's glad to see that Wells isn't around at the moment, because Bellamy is in no mood to deal with Wells' superior attitude or I-told-you-so expression.

Bellamy grabs one of the smaller containers, since he doesn't want to waste more water than he needs to, and takes it back to where Octavia is sitting. He unties the tourniquet and dunks it in the water, cleaning it off as best he can before bringing it up and using it to gently dab at the bloody mess on Octavia's thigh. Octavia hisses at the contact, but doesn't move, and Bellamy is grateful that she doesn't make it any harder than it already is.

"What happened out there?" Bellamy finally asks. "How many were there?"

"Of the grounders?" Octavia asks. "Don't know. We never saw them."

"What do you mean you never saw them?" Bellamy demands. How could they do this to Octavia's leg, how could they kidnap someone, and yet remain unseen.

"Jasper was hit by a spear. They must have been hiding in the trees behind us. We thought Jasper was dead, so we were on our way back to camp – "

"You left him there?" Bellamy interrupts.

"He'd crossed the river, swung over on a vine. They didn't spear him until he'd reached the other side. If we'd crossed to get him, they'd have speared us too," Octavia defends.

Bellamy nods, indicating that Octavia should continue. He feels bad for rushing to judgement. He's sure Octavia was terrified out there. He certainly would have been if he'd been out there, thinking he was alone and then suddenly under attack.

"We were on our way back to camp, and then we heard Jasper screaming. He wasn't dead. So we went back for him. But they'd already taken him," Octavia finishes.

Bellamy nods, but knows that the story can't be finished yet. When Octavia doesn't volunteer any more information, he questions her on the aspect that he's most concerned about.

"And your leg?" he asks. "How did that happen?"

"That happened before," Octavia replies, hissing again as Bellamy starts moving closer to the actual cut in her thigh. "It wasn't the grounders."

"It wasn't?" Bellamy asks, surprised. How many potential dangers could there be out there?

"It was some kind of sea creature," Octavia explains. "Came up to me while I was in the water and bit me."

"What were you doing in the water?" Bellamy demands, exasperated.

Octavia shrugs. "Going for a swim."

Bellamy takes a deep breath before speaking again, knowing that he needs to control his temper lest he say something he'll regret later. But how could Octavia be so reckless? None of them know anything about the dangers on this earth. Already there are two that Bellamy knows of – grounders and flesh-eating sea creatures. Most likely there are more that just haven't made themselves known yet. And Octavia's running around jumping into rivers or lakes or whatever with no regard for her own safety.

"Octavia, you can't just – "

"Don't tell me what I can and cannot do, Bellamy," Octavia insists, cutting Bellamy off. "It's not like I knew what was going to happen, or I wouldn't have jumped in the water in the first place. Don't tell me you think you could have predicted it?"

"No, but I would at least have the common sense to check out the water before jumping into it," Bellamy snaps back, pressing a little harder than necessary and causing Octavia to let out a small cry of pain.

Bellamy feels bad now, for treating Octavia like the one at fault here, when she is clearly the victim. He doesn't apologize, because that will set a bad precedent of Octavia thinking she can do whatever she wants, but he decides to drop the accusations.

"What the hell was it?" he asks, deciding he needs to know more about this flesh-eating sea creature.

"I don't know," Octavia says. "The others said it looked like a giant snake."

Bellamy considers this for a second and tries to remember if he'd ever read about dangerous sea snakes back on the ark. Unfortunately, Bellamy had never been a star pupil, and his knowledge of earth animals, land, sea, or sky, was pretty minimal. Not to mention, this creature could be new since the apocalypse. Who knows what kinds of creatures could have come out of that?

"You could have been killed," Bellamy says, forcing Octavia to make eye contact with him. He doesn't say it because he's mad at her. He says it because he's scared. He's scared that her recklessness will cause her to do something that would result in him losing her one day. He doesn't want to make her feel worse for what she's done, but he wants her to be careful in the future.

Unfortunately, their brother/sister moment is interrupted by the arrival of blonde girl – Clarke, Bellamy reminds himself – going on about how someone had to jump in to save Octavia. From her tone, Bellamy can tell that she is as unimpressed as he is about Octavia's recklessness.

Bellamy notices the supply pack on Clarke's back, and then a similar one on Wells' back just behind Clarke, and he realizes at the same time as Octavia that this must be the rescue party going to get the kid who was taken by the grounders. Jasper, Bellamy thinks to himself. He has to start remembering people by their names.

Bellamy's first thought is that they must have taken their supplies from the dropship, and he is annoyed that they were up on the third level, going through the stash that he'd so careful compiled. But he forgets about this when Octavia tries to stand, claiming she's going on the rescue mission as well.

Bellamy forces her back down onto the tree and insists that she's not going out there again. To his relief, Clarke backs him up on this, claiming that because of her injured leg, she won't be able to keep up anyway. Octavia seems to accept this and though she rolls her eyes, she grabs the ripped bit of shirt Bellamy has been using as a cloth and ties it back around her leg to hold off the bleeding.

"I'm here for you," Clarke says then looking directly at Bellamy.

Bellamy is surprised by this and turns to meet her gaze curiously.

"I hear you have a gun," she adds.

Bellamy nods, lifting his shirt to reveal the gun shoved into the waistband of his pants. There's no chance he's going to leave it lying around for one of the other hundred to find, after all.

"Good," Clarke nods, satisfied. "Follow me."

"And why would I do that?" Bellamy demands. He doesn't take orders from her. If anything, she needs to start taking orders from him.

Unfortunately, Clarke gives him an excellent reason. If Bellamy stays behind while Clarke and Wells go off on a rescue mission, then he's the scared boy who doesn't want to leave camp, and they become the heroes who saved Jasper. If they come back successful, he'll have a hard time convincing the others not to follow them. If he goes with them, then he can claim the victory for himself and remain the leader. Not to mention, getting Clarke away from camp could give him the perfect opportunity to forcibly remove her wristband. And as the only remaining elite wearing one, it's imperative that the ark thinks she's dead too.

Though Bellamy doesn't want to go, mostly because it would mean leaving Octavia, he knows he has to. He glances around and identifies two people he can trust – or at least, who he hopes he can trust. Since Murphy is the more violent of the two, he orders Murphy to come on the rescue mission with him. If the grounders make an appearance, Murphy could come in handy. He orders Atom to look after Octavia while he's gone, much to Octavia's protestations. Bellamy doesn't care if Octavia is upset about the arrangement though. He won't be able to function unless he knows someone is keeping an eye on his sister and making sure she stays put in the camp.

"Since when are we in the rescuing business, huh?" Murphy demands once they set out, clearly annoyed at being forced to go out on a mission with Wells and Clarke.

Bellamy reveals his plan to get Clarke's wristband and Murphy seems appeased by the answer. Bellamy chooses not to mention the other bit. After all, Murphy is one of the people Bellamy needs to keep on his side. If Murphy knew he was scared in any way, he'd never follow him.

Bellamy decides to wait until they're a decent distance from camp before he makes a play for Clarke's wristband. For one thing, he doesn't want anyone from camp to see him trying to coerce Clarke into removing it – it'd be better for them to think she took it off willingly. For another thing, he's not entirely looking forward to the confrontation.

Unfortunately, Murphy is a little impatient, insisting that if Bellamy really intended to take the wristband from her, he'd have done it already.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of a little blonde thing?" Murphy insists. "Even with the prince by her side, you can take her. You've got a gun, after all."

Since Bellamy can't have Murphy losing faith in him – after all, Murphy is practically Bellamy's right-hand man at this point – he goes in, stopping Clarke and Wells in their tracks, waving his gun around in the hopes that it would make him appear more dangerous and going on about how there's no rush since Jasper's probably already dead. It didn't matter that they'd heard him scream after he'd been speared. Likely the grounders have killed him by now anyway.

Sensing Murphy judging him every second he doesn't act, Bellamy grabs Clarke by the arm, insisting that she remove her wristband. As expected, Clarke pulls her arm out of Bellamy's grasp, telling him that there's no chance in hell she'll take her wristband off voluntarily. Bellamy isn't fazed. He has the gun ready and is prepared to threaten her if need be, but then out of nowhere, the long-haired boy appears and takes charge, declaring that they need to split up if they're ever going to find Jasper. He leads Clarke off in one direction, leaving Bellamy with Murphy, Wells, and a gun.

Annoyed at the interruption, and also the fact that he and Murphy will now be outnumbered if he tries to physically attack Clarke, Bellamy stows the gun in his waistband again and sets out, determined to wait for the perfect opportunity to strike.

The search for the missing kid is tedious. The earth is huge and Bellamy has no idea how Clarke and Wells expect to be able to happen across him when they don't even know the terrain. Bellamy doesn't bother keeping his eyes peeled for Jasper. Clarke, Wells, and the long-haired boy are looking, and if they end up anywhere near him, one of them will see. Instead, Bellamy tracks Clarke from a distance, walking alongside Wells for no other reason than to keep the prince in his sights. Bellamy orders Murphy to follow Clarke and the long-haired boy on the other side to make sure that they stay cornered between the two of them.

To amuse himself, Bellamy strikes up a conversation with Wells about Clarke, trying to rile Wells up. At least it beats wandering around the forest in silence. And Bellamy finally manages to associate a name with the long-haired boy – Finn. So Bellamy supposes that's productive.

After a while, antagonizing Wells gets boring, so Bellamy lets the subject go, lapsing back into silence. Though Bellamy is exceptionally bored, it does give him time to think.

His first concern is of course the same as always – Octavia. He knows she's probably hating him now for imprisoning her back at camp, but he knows that it was necessary. Eventually though, he'll need to come up with a better plan for dealing with her. While he can't have her wandering around unattended, going wherever she pleases, he also can't lock her up again. He wishes he could trust Octavia to look out for herself, but the truth is since she's never had to before, Bellamy isn't sure she knows how. All her life, Octavia has had someone else calling the shots: their mother and Bellamy for the first fifteen years of her life, and then the prison guards right up until yesterday. Octavia has never really been able to make decisions for herself. At least, not the decisions that count. And Bellamy isn't convinced that Octavia has the judgement required to make those kinds of decisions.

The other thing on Bellamy's mind is ensuring the survival, not only of himself and Octavia, but of everybody. Assuming his plan works out and the ark never follows them down, they'll be forever on their own down here. Somehow, they'll need to sort out issues like food, water, shelter – not to mention security and protection from the grounders.

The people back at the dropship should already be well underway at building up a wall around camp. Though the order to build the wall was issued by Wells, Bellamy doesn't really care. This time, it's more important that the feat get done than for Bellamy to assert his authority. The wall will give the camp the necessary protection that at least they'll be able to sleep at night without the fear of grounders coming into camp and picking them off one by one.

Water should also be simple enough. Bellamy had already come across more than one source of fresh water on his hike through the forest, and then there's the rainwater. They'll just have to organize a system for collecting and storing the water.

Shelter should be easy enough as well. Bellamy had scavenged enough material from the dropship that he could fashion a few tents. Then there's the dropship – not the most comfortable shelter for sleeping, but an effective one. Besides that, once the wall is built, he can put some of the teenagers to work building more structures – smaller huts that can be used as shelter or as storage units.

The biggest problem, besides the grounders, is food. They're already dangerously low on the rations they came down with, and Mount Weather is clearly not going to happen any time soon. Bellamy knows that some of the plants on the earth must be edible, but he has no way of discerning which those are, and which might be poisonous. He supposes someone back at camp might be able to tell them apart though, and makes a mental note to find out if there's anyone who can help in that regard. As for protein, Bellamy now knows that there are indeed animals on the ground that they could kill for meat. The sea creature that attacked Octavia can't be the only one. But in order to kill animals for meat, they're going to need weapons and hunters – two things they just don't have yet.

It's a couple of hours before Clarke calls out that she and Finn have found something, and Bellamy, Wells, and Murphy hasten to join them.

"Look," Clarke says when they arrive. She's pointing at the ground and Bellamy looks down.

"Blood," he observes, crouching down to examine it more carefully. It's smeared across the rocks in such a way that Bellamy can tell whoever was bleeding was being dragged. He reaches out to touch it and his hand comes back red. It's still wet, which means the person who was bleeding was here recently.

"How do we know it's even his?" Murphy demands. "Maybe one of the grounders was bleeding for an entirely different reason. Who's to say they even brought Jasper by here?"

"I highly doubt that," Clarke says, making a face at Murphy. "Besides, this is the only lead we've got. I say we follow it."

"I can track the trail," Finn declares, taking the lead.

It annoys Bellamy that Clarke and Finn seem to think that they're in charge of this rescue mission, but then he figures he was never in it to save Jasper anyway. Finding the kidnapped boy would only be a bonus.

They don't have to go far before they hear a cry, and suddenly, everyone is on edge, Bellamy included. Until now, he hadn't really considered the possibility of finding Jasper, and what it might mean if they did. Any number of grounders could be holding him hostage and the five of them could be slaughtered in seconds.

"Now would be a good time to take out that gun," Clarke declares.

Bellamy has to agree. He pulls the gun out of his waistband and turns off the safety. Ever since getting on the dropship, he'd never had cause to take it off. Even when he was holding the gun to Wells last night, he'd left it on, confident that he was never going to pull the trigger. Now, he's terrified he actually might have to.

They hurry through the forest in the direction of the cries, Finn in the lead and come to a stop at the edge of a clearing. Jasper is there, strung up on a tree, bare-chested and bleeding, moaning loudly. The rest of the clearing is empty, but Bellamy knows that this doesn't mean the grounders aren't here. They could be hiding in the trees, waiting for them all to walk out in the clearing to strike.

Clarke starts to hurry forward and Bellamy is about to tell her to stop, that she's making herself a target. But then he realizes that if the grounders are here, they're all dead anyway, whether they walk out into the clearing or not, and so instead he follows her, frowning up at Jasper and wondering why the grounders would go to so much trouble. First to spear him, then to take him, and then to string him up for them to find him – what kind of message are they trying to send?

And then suddenly, right in front of him, Clarke stumbles and starts to fall. Bellamy looks down to see the ground caving in underneath her and moving on instinct, he reaches out and grabs her hand to stop her from falling. He throws out his other hand to hold himself up against the ground and tightens his grip on her arm, realizing that the grounders have set a trap.

Below Clarke is a hole full of spears all pointing up. If she were to fall in, she would surely die. If not instantly, then she would bleed out from the injuries she would surely sustain on impact. And for a moment, Bellamy considers just letting go. It would simplify his life in so many ways if Clarke could just be dead. He wouldn't have to worry about her constantly challenging his authority and trying to sway the hundred with grand speeches. He also wouldn't have to worry about getting her wristband, as her death would send an even more direct message back to the ark that they should not come to the ground. And it would be so easy. All Bellamy must do is let go. He can say she slipped, or that she was just too heavy, or even that she'd let go.

But as he looks into Clarke's terrified eyes – and he can tell that she can see what he's thinking – he finds that he can't do it. He can't let her go, can't let her fall to her death. He's already responsible for one death, he can't be responsible for another. So when the others hurry over to help him, he musters all his strength and pulls her up out of the hole, Finn grabbing her as soon as she's cleared the worst of it and pulling her onto solid ground.

Safe for the moment, Clarke tries to regulate her breathing and regain her footing for a moment and Bellamy scans the woods for any sign of grounders. When he doesn't see any, he looks back to Clarke to find her looking at him. When their eyes meet, Bellamy can feel the judgement in her expression. And Bellamy feels ashamed. To have even considered letting her fall to her death – Bellamy can't even believe he could have stooped so low.

But there are more pressing matters at hand, and since Clarke isn't dwelling on it, Bellamy tells himself that he shouldn't dwell on it either. There's still Jasper to deal with, not to mention making their way back to camp without being killed.

Since Bellamy has the gun, he stays on the ground with Clarke and Wells while Finn and Murphy climb the tree to get Jasper down. Bellamy stays on the lookout, convinced that as soon as they free Jasper the grounders will attack. He finds it odd that they haven't shown themselves yet, but then he figures that they must have some sort of plan in place and he needs to be ready for it. So while Clarke and Wells watch the others freeing Jasper from the tree, Bellamy keeps his eyes on the woods.

Suddenly there's a noise – like a growling – and everyone freezes.

"What the hell was that?" Murphy demands, and for the first time ever, Bellamy detects a hint of fear in the boy's voice.

Bellamy's first thought is that it's the grounders, finally coming for them. But the sound isn't altogether human, and Bellamy isn't convinced. Then it occurs to Bellamy that nobody has actually seen the grounders yet, and he wonders if they are even human, or if they're some kind of creature, created as a result of the nuclear apocalypse.

There's movement in the shadows at the edge of the forest and Bellamy feels his heartrate pick up as he tries to prepare himself for this confrontation. The truth is, there's nothing he can do to properly prepare himself though, because the reality is that this is most likely the moment he's going to die.

Then the thing starts to move and Bellamy sees that while it isn't a grounder, it could potentially be much worse. It's some kind of large four-legged creature – he's not sure exactly what it is, but the word panther comes to mind as a possibility. It advances slowly at first and then breaks into a run. Petrified at the idea of being torn to shreds, Bellamy stumbles, unsure whether he should run or hold his ground, and then Clarke calls for him to take out his gun and he suddenly remembers that yes – he has a weapon.

Bellamy reaches for his waistband to grab his gun, only to find that it's missing. He panics. How could he have misplaced it? How could he have not noticed that it was missing? It was pressed up against his bare skin all this time after all. Or maybe not, if he lost it back when they were close to camp.

The sound of gunshots distracts Bellamy from his frantic searching of his person and he looks up to find Wells holding the gun, his face manic as he shoots at the creature once, twice, three and then four times, always missing. Realizing that it's under attack, the creature dives into the bushes right near Bellamy, making itself almost invisible and Bellamy tries to follow the sound of it's growling, but it's like the creature is everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And Bellamy feels powerless to do anything against it, because Wells has his gun and has already wasted four bullets.

The growling stops, and suddenly there is silence, and this scares Bellamy even more. The creature can't be gone, because he would have seen it leave, which means it's still there, only keeping a low profile, probably getting ready for the final attack. Bellamy again wants to run, but he's afraid to choose a direction in fear that the direction he chooses is the direction the creature is lying in wait.

Then, Bellamy sees movement out of the corner of his eye. He turns to face it and finds that the creature has jumped and is seconds away from landing on him. And Bellamy knows that he's going to die. And he's not ready. He thinks of Octavia and panics, wondering who's going to look after her now that he's gone. Everything he's done – killing the Chancellor, forcing the teenagers to take off their wristbands – it's all been for nothing if he dies now. In fact, the almost funny thing is, if Bellamy's going to die right here, then it would be better for Octavia if the ark did follow her down. At least the ark might be able to protect them all from the grounders. And besides, it was never Octavia that was in danger of being executed by the council. That was always Bellamy's fate alone. But he's ruined any chance of the ark coming down now. They already think the prince is dead, the princess will be dead as soon as the panther or whatever it is finishes with Bellamy. The rest of the teenagers at camp will eventually take their wristbands off once Mbege and Atom take charge and finish what Bellamy started. And then the ground will kill them all.

Bellamy raises his hands to cover his face – a lame attempt at protecting himself, because he knows he doesn't stand a chance. A gunshot sounds, and then the creature is lying on the ground, dead, and Bellamy is standing over it, alive.

It takes Bellamy a moment to calm his racing heart and to return his breathing to normal. Then he turns to find Wells still holding the gun, clicking away at it continually, despite the fact that he's now used up the last of the bullets. Bellamy is simultaneously grateful and annoyed at Wells for having taken the gun – on the one hand, Wells did just save his life, but on the other hand he wasted all of Bellamy's bullets doing it and left Bellamy in a vulnerable state.

"Alright!" Murphy suddenly calls out in a celebratory state. "We've got dinner!"

It occurs to Bellamy that Murphy is right. While so far he's only seen the panther as a threat, now that the panther is dead, they can use it. Bellamy calls up to Finn and Murphy to hurry up and get Jasper down. In the meantime, Wells opens up his pack to reveal that he's packed the parachute from the dropship.

"We can wrap it up in this," he says, obviously aware that the panther is too big for one of them to carry on their own.

Once Wells has laid the parachute out on the ground, Bellamy helps him to roll the panther onto it and then they wrap the parachute around it, creating a nice little cocoon for the dead animal.

"We'll need to get it back to camp before it starts to go bad," Clarke declares immediately. "It's already dead, we need to cook the meat right away."

"Yeah," Finn agrees, as he and Murphy slowly make their way down the tree with Jasper, having finished cutting him free. "And Jasper's not going to last long out here either. We need to get him back where you can properly tend to this wound."

Clarke nods, and Bellamy is glad that she doesn't insist on looking at him right now. Besides needing to get both Jasper and the panther back to camp as quickly as possible, Bellamy isn't too excited at the prospect of staying out in the woods longer than they have to.

As soon as Finn and Murphy touch down on the ground, Wells moves to take Murphy's place holding Jasper up with Finn, and Murphy joins Bellamy in helping to carry the panther. Carrying the panther will be the more labor-inducing job, and with Wells' bad leg, he's better off limping with the injured kid.

Clarke leads the way, somehow instinctively knowing the most direct path back to camp – or at least claiming she does. Either way, Bellamy figures it's better to have the person leading the way be the one not burdened by carrying something, so he lets her lead without argument.

The walk back to camp doesn't take nearly as long as the hike to find Jasper, mainly because they no longer have to walk in circles and zig-zagging lines. Camp is still a long way off though, and by the time they do return, it's dark and Bellamy can see a fire burning from within the camp. The other thing Bellamy notices is the beginnings of a wall. While he would have preferred the wall to be finished already – especially knowing there are creatures like this panther thing out there – he figures at least it's a start. In the morning, he'll organize everyone into proper work parties and they'll have the rest of the wall up in no time.

They enter the camp, and Clarke immediately takes charge of Jasper, indicating that he should be brought into the dropship where she can look at him properly. Bellamy doesn't protest – she probably knows more about medicine than anyone else here if her mother is a doctor. And if Clarke is established as the camp medic, then Bellamy can be free to be the camp leader.

While Clarke is busy with Jasper, Bellamy and Murphy make a show of dumping the parachute with the panther on the ground in front of the group.

"Who's hungry?" Bellamy cries loudly. By bringing the panther back, Bellamy has now created the picture of himself as the provider for the camp. Bellamy is determined to make sure people know it.

"Bell." Octavia comes up next to him and with a smile, Bellamy wraps his arm around his sister's shoulder. He's relieved to see that apart from her leg injury, Octavia remains unharmed. "What is that thing?"

Bellamy shrugs. "Do you care?"

He hears his sister's stomach rumble and he laughs. Then he sobers himself when he realizes that the rumbling of her stomach probably signifies that she hasn't eaten anything since the ark, and he feels like a terrible brother for not having fed her sooner.

"Let's get this thing cooked!" Bellamy calls out, and Murphy immediately sets to work skinning the thing right there in front of the fire, cutting the meat into strips and skewering them for easier cooking.

Taking Octavia's hand, he pulls her away from the creature, not wanting her to have to stand witness to it's disemboweling. As he leads her away, something feels off about her arm, and he looks down to realize that her wristband it missing.

"You took it off?" he asks in surprise. He'd have expected Octavia to leave hers on for a while, if anything then simply out of teenager rebellion against him.

Octavia shrugs. "Whatever," she mutters.

Bellamy nods and then a great idea hits him. He looks around and notices Mbege standing nearby, so he calls him over. He tells him that there's a new rule. Once the meat is cooked, anyone who wants to eat first has to have their wristband removed. Bellamy's sure that together, Mbege and Murphy can see to it that his new law is enforced.

"What happened to free will?" Octavia demands, apparently not loving her brother's new role as rule-maker.

"I'm doing this for you, O," Bellamy declares. "One day, you'll see that."

"Yeah," Octavia mutters. "You just keep telling yourself that."

Octavia stalks away then. Bellamy considers following her, but he sees Atom stand up to follow her and he decides to let her be. Atom will keep an eye on her, and this way, Bellamy can keep an eye on the wristband situation. Octavia will come around, he's sure. As long as he gives her the time and space to do so.

The first of the food is ready to be eaten, and the teenagers are lining up to partake. It seems that Mbege has already made the wristband rule declaration and the first of the wristbands is in the process of being removed. Bellamy moves to stand with Murphy and Mbege, deciding that his presence is important for people to associate him with the rule and he watches as the discarded wristbands start to slowly pile up.

After a while, Finn approaches the fire, going to grab a skewer even though his wristband is still on his arm. Murphy goes to stop him and Bellamy trusts that Murphy can handle the situation. When Bellamy turns back though, he sees Finn walking away with both the food and his wristband still intact, Clarke following close behind him.

As they walk away, another boy steps out of the line and moves to grab a skewer of his own before removing his wristband. Bellamy realizes that if he's going to enforce his rule, he's going to have to do it himself, and he grabs the boy's hand just as he's going for the skewer and punches him right in the face, sending a clear message to everyone watching that he will not allow them to make exceptions.

He looks up at Murphy then, making it clear with his expression that he's not impressed that he let Clarke and Finn take food without first surrendering their wristbands. He considers dealing with Murphy now, but decides that he first needs to get the food back from Clarke and Finn. He still needs Clarke's wristband, and he figures that maybe the threat of starvation will convince her to give it up.

They went in the direction of the forest, though Bellamy isn't sure exactly where, so he heads out to do a quick walk of the perimeter in the hopes that he'll come across them quickly enough. The longer Clarke plays by different rules than the rest of the group, the harder it's going to be for Bellamy to get her to fall in line, and he can't have that.

Soon, he hears the sound of leaves rustling and is convinced that he's found them. He can't see them very well, because of all the trees and bushes blocking them, but he can tell from their positions that they are in the process of making out. Bellamy rolls his eyes, annoyed but not altogether surprised.

Then he realizes that the girl doesn't have blonde hair like Clarke, but instead she is a brunette. A step closer and he realizes to his horror that the girl isn't Clarke at all, but Octavia. And the boy isn't Finn. It's Atom.

Bellamy's blood boils. He gave Atom very clear instructions that morning that he was to watch over Octavia, to protect her, to not let her leave camp, and not to let anyone touch her. And here Atom was abusing his power and taking advantage of his sister in the middle of the forest. It wasn't as though Octavia knew any better. She'd never been around boys, save for her brother. For fifteen years she only knew Bellamy and their mother, and in the sky box, her cellmate had been a girl, since the ark kept their prisoners separated by gender. Atom knows this and is deliberately using Octavia's inexperience to his advantage. And Bellamy could kill him.

"Atom!" he calls out, breaking the couple apart before it can go any further. "We're on first watch," he lies.

He waits for Atom to reluctantly part from Octavia to follow him and then leads Atom back to camp, confident that Octavia won't stay in the forest long by herself. Right now, he's more concerned with dealing with Atom, as he is now a bigger threat than the unknown of the woods. Bellamy can deal with Octavia later.

Back at camp, Bellamy confirms that everyone who wants to eat has received their meat, and removed their wristbands.

"Wait here," Bellamy tells Atom, walking towards the fire where Murphy and Mbege continue to guard the meat. "Guys. Get some rope and meet me out in the woods. That direction," he points in a direction that he knows leads to a very small clearing where there is a tree that will be perfect for what Bellamy has planned. And it is far enough from camp that nobody will hear what they are going to be doing.

"What about the meat?" Mbege asks. "If we leave, anyone could take it."

"Let them," Bellamy says. "We've got enough wristbands for tonight. And this is more important anyway."

He returns to Atom and leads him out to the clearing to wait for Murphy and Mbege.

"Shouldn't we split up?" Atom wonders when Bellamy stops walking. "If we're on watch, we should probably cover both sides of camp, right?"

"You won't be patrolling tonight," Bellamy declares, causing Atom to frown in confusion. Now that they are alone, Bellamy seriously considers just killing Atom and being done with it. He definitely wants to. But before he can, Murphy and Mbege make their appearance with the rope and Bellamy reminds himself that they're going to need as many fighters as they can get if they're going to survive against the grounders. A painful punishment will have to do.

"So what's the rope for?" Murphy asks, looking from Bellamy to Atom and then back again curiously.

Bellamy nods in Atom's direction, his face hard like stone. "Tie him up," he orders. "By his hands. To that tree there."

Murphy smiles at the prospect and Bellamy wonders if this kid is alright. Atoms face immediately falls and he starts backing away, as if preparing to make a run for it.

"What?" he cries. "No! Bellamy you can't! Why would you - ?"

"I asked you to keep my sister safe today, Atom," Bellamy declares as Murphy and Mbege each grab one of Atom's arms, preventing him from escaping. They starts to tie the rope around his hands, pulling tightly so that he won't be able to shimmy out of it. "Instead you took advantage of her."

"But we didn't even do anything!" Atom insists as Murphy throws the rope over a sturdy-looking tree branch and pulls, causing Atom's arms to shoot up in the arm. Atom's face is filled with fear and Bellamy can't help but feel satisfied that he's getting his point across. "We just kissed."

"My instructions were clear," Bellamy insists, not caring about the extent to which his sister was taken advantage of, and convinced that had he not intervened, it would have gone farther. "I told you not to let anyone touch her. That was to include you."

The rope securely in place, Murphy and Mbege both put all their weight into pulling on the rope, and slowly Atom starts to rise into the air. He cries out in pain as the rope digs into his wrists and Bellamy stands back, his arms crossed in front of his chest. Once Atom is high enough off the ground, Murphy maintains his hold on the rope while Mbege ties it, first to the trunk of a neighboring tree for support, and then around a large root that is poking out of the ground to keep the rope grounded. Once it is done, they both let go and step back to admire their handiwork.

"Let him down just before sunrise," Bellamy orders his two most trusted lackeys. "You two are on watch tonight. Take it in shifts if you have to, and get me the minute you spot any suspicious activity. The grounders will be watching now that we've taken Jasper back."

Murphy and Mbege nod their understanding and Bellamy moves to walk away.

"Guys!" Atom calls out then, desperately. "You're not just going to leave me here?" It's as if he hasn't realized just how serious Bellamy is yet. So Bellamy drives the point home.

"No Atom," he says. "I won't be disobeyed."

As Bellamy turns and walks away, he can hear Atom continue to cry out, to him, to Murphy and Mbege, to anyone at all that can hear him.

"And make sure nobody comes near him tonight either," Bellamy instructs the other two. "He's to be left alone, to think about the consequences of what he's done."

With that taken care of, Bellamy returns to camp to find Octavia. When he enters camp, he finds that things are winding down for the night. Many people have already curled up in moss patches or against trees for the night – it seems that significantly less people want to sleep inside the dropship now that Jasper is inside moaning. Clarke and Finn are nowhere to be found, and Bellamy suspects that they are in the dropship with Jasper. Bellamy just hopes that they only took him to the first or second level, because the third level? That's his.

He finds Octavia moping around the fire, trying to bring it back to life now that it's starting to burn itself out. She's doing a terrible job of it though, moving the logs around with a stick instead of adding fuel to the fire. Bellamy grabs a handful of twigs that are lying on the ground nearby and tosses them in, causing a slight intensification in the fire's size.

"Come with me," he mutters, gesturing with his head that he'd like her to follow him into the dropship.

"Like hell I will," Octavia protests, standing her ground.

Bellamy closes his eyes takes a deep breath before rounding on Octavia again. If she's going to be difficult, he's more than happy to have the conversation here. He just thought it would be more beneficial to Octavia for them to speak in private.

"Octavia, what do you think you're doing?" Bellamy demands angrily. Of course, he's mostly mad at Atom. Atom's the one who was taking advantage of Octavia, who was using her for his own sick pleasure. But Octavia's not entirely innocent either. She may not have known exactly what she was getting herself into, but she could have told him to back off when he'd made his advances. Bellamy knows that Octavia is capable of standing up for herself.

"I'm stoking the fire, what does it look like I'm doing?" Octavia demands.

"With Atom," Bellamy clarifies, annoyed at Octavia's little games. "What do you think you're doing with Atom?"

At his words, Octavia immediately stiffens and her eyes turn cold. Bellamy hates that he even has to have this conversation at all, knowing that Octavia's going to hate him for it, but as her older brother, it's his responsibility to look out for her. If he doesn't have this conversation with her, no one will.

"I don't think that's any of your business," Octavia says, turning away, as if to leave.

Bellamy grabs her arm and forces her to face him. This time, he holds on tightly so that she can't just pull her arm from his grasp like she usually does. When she tries, and his grip still holds, she looks up at him shocked, as if his forcing her to stay put is some kind of betrayal.

"I am your brother and it is my business," Bellamy says angrily. "Now I want you to stay away from Atom from now on. In fact, stay away from all the boys at this camp. There are plenty of girls you can spend your time with."

"You can't force me to stay away from anyone!" Octavia insists, pulling hard and succeeding in releasing Bellamy's hold on her. "You aren't the boss of me!"

"Oh, except that I am," Bellamy says in a low voice. "I'm the boss of everyone around here. What I say goes, and if you don't listen to me, you are not going to like the consequences."

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Bellamy regrets them. He doesn't want to control his sister, he just wants to protect her. But he's already said the words, and Octavia's heard them, and there's nothing he can do to change what he's said, so he has to go with it.

"Are you threatening me?" Octavia demands in outrage.

"Maybe I am," Bellamy declares. He wouldn't go so far as to string her up by her wrists, but he could always lock her in the dropship if she refuses to listen to him.

"Well here's a newsflash," Octavia says, coming right up into Bellamy's personal space. "I'm not afraid of you. I do not take orders from you. And there is nothing you can do to make me."

And with that said, Octavia takes her leave, stalking away from Bellamy in the direction of the tree line.

Bellamy considers going after her, forcing her to sleep in the dropship where she will be safer, but decides against it. He's made his point, and she just needed to let herself have the last word. They both know that Bellamy has the power here, and he's pretty sure he's made his point. Now he just needs to let her cool off, give her a bit of space, and let her come to her senses.

Bellamy doesn't like the idea of leaving Octavia unprotected though, and he's even less excited about the prospect of sleeping in the dropship alongside the moaning of Jasper. So instead of returning to the third level of the dropship as he'd originally planned, he chooses a tree to sleep against that's close enough to Octavia that he can keep an eye on her, but far enough away that she won't know he's watching her all night.

Bellamy leans back against the tree, looks up at the sky and sighs. He closes his eyes and silently sends up a wish. _Please_ , he think to himself, _please let tomorrow be easier._


	3. Earth Kills

Chapter 3: Earth Kills

When Bellamy awakes in the morning, it's to find that Murphy and Mbege are on their way back to camp with Atom in tow. Rising to meet them, Bellamy holds Atom's gaze for a moment and then nods, indicating that they are good now. Bellamy will certainly never trust Atom with Octavia ever again, but Atom can be useful in other ways, and Bellamy's ready to put him to put him to work.

Actually, Bellamy is ready to put the whole camp to work. There are so many things that need to get done. The wall needs to be finished, water needs to be collected, food needs to be found – all the panther meat is gone now and people will soon be getting hungry again.

"Let's gather everyone up," Bellamy says to the others. "It's time we get ourselves organized."

It takes a few minutes, but soon Murphy, Atom, and Mbege have most of the camp gathered. Clarke is still in the dropship with Jasper though, and Bellamy decides that she can stay there. It will only complicate things to have her out here challenging his authority as she always does.

"Alright," Bellamy says loudly, so that everyone can hear him. "It's a new day, and that means we need to get to work. The grounders are still out there, so I want the majority of you all working on getting that wall up. Let's try not to spend another night sleeping out in the open. As for the rest of you, let's say… you six," Bellamy points to the six people standing at the front of the crowd, "I need a couple of small groups to go out to collect fresh water. Let's try to gather as much as we can, because we never know when we might have need of it."

"Excuse me?" a girl Bellamy doesn't know speaks up. "Where exactly are we supposed to find this fresh water? Most of us have never been outside of camp."

"There's a river not too far from here if you walk in that direction," Bellamy declares, pointing in the direction of the river. "Leave a trail if you're worried you won't find your way back."

The girl nods and melds right back into the crowd.

"Everyone clear then?" Bellamy asks. There's a collective nod from the group and then people start to move, going to get started on their assigned tasks.

As Bellamy is about to turn to tell Murphy, Atom, and Mbege his plan for them, he notices Octavia teaming up with the water group and he hurries over to put a stop to that.

"Whoa," Bellamy says, stepping in front of Octavia. "Where do you think you're going with that?" He gestures to the large empty water container she is holding.

"Well I was going to go down to the river and fill it," Octavia says. "You got a problem with that?"

"Yeah, I do actually," Bellamy nods. "I didn't assign you to water duty, I assigned you to wall building." Bellamy doesn't want Octavia on water duty because it means venturing outside of the camp. Bellamy will be a lot more comfortable knowing that Octavia remains safely with the others, building a wall to keep the grounders out.

"Yeah, well you only assigned six people to water, and I figured they could use an extra hand," Octavia declares defiantly.

"Well the wall is more important at the moment, so why don't you go help with that?" Bellamy says. "Besides, I think six is more than enough to get water."

Octavia stares Bellamy down for a moment, but gives up too quickly, huffing and dropping the container at his feet. "You can't keep me cooped up in here forever," she says as she heads over to the wall, where a couple of guys have taken over coordinating the construction of the wall and are giving out orders to the rest.

Bellamy sighs in relief. He really didn't want another dramatic showdown with Octavia so early in the morning and is glad she caved. He knows that her obedience won't last long though, and worries when her next outburst may happen. Hopefully it can wait for another day, because Bellamy has a lot to do at the moment.

"So what about us?" Murphy asks once Bellamy returns. "What are we supposed to do?"

"Start practicing your aim," Bellamy says, gesturing to Murphy's knife. "We four are going hunting."

Unfortunately, with all the bullets used, Bellamy's gun is now useless and cannot be used to bring home supper like last night. Luckily, the ark did send them down with a few knives and other tools that could be used as weapons, and Bellamy is determined to take advantage of them. He knows it's going to be much harder to take down a panther, or any creature, with only a small knife, but it's all they have at the moment. So as soon as they've perfected their aim, Bellamy plans to head out.

Bellamy's only been practicing throwing his axe for about five minutes when a panicked boy runs up, his face stained with tears and sobbing uncontrollably.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Bellamy frowns, immediately on the alert. If it's the grounders finally attacking, Bellamy isn't sure he can do all that much, but he still feels his protective instinct kick into high gear.

"It's my friends," the boy says between sniffs. "Pascal and Trina. They were here yesterday, and then they said they were going for a walk, but that they would be back, and when I went to sleep last night they still weren't back, but I figured they went for a long walk – they're dating you know – but this morning they still weren't back and I can't find them anywhere and I think – I think something bad happened to them."

Bellamy immediately snaps to attention. "Atom. Mbege. You two check the perimeter. If you see signs of a struggle, or anything at all unusual, you come and get me. Understood?"

"Understood," Atom replies disappearing into the surrounding woods with Mbege in seconds.

"Hey, what about me?" Murphy demands.

"Keep practicing your aim," Bellamy mutters at him, taking the crying boy and leading him to the dropship.

As they get closer, Jasper's moaning gets louder and louder. It's terribly upsetting, and Bellamy wishes he would just stop, or that Clarke was a better doctor and could fix whatever's wrong. But she must be doing the best that she can, and it's not like Bellamy would know anything about healing anyway.

When they reach the dropship door, the boy stops walking, refusing to go inside.

"Come on kid," Bellamy insists. "Go inside, and I'll let you know as soon as we know what's going on with your friends." Bellamy figures the boy won't be much help building the wall in the state he's in, and he doesn't want him to get in the way either, so he figures sticking him in the dropship is the best plan.

"I don't want to go in there with the dying kid," the boy shakes his head.

"Well you're in no fit state to help with the wall," Bellamy declares. "Go on."

As soon as the boy is inside, Bellamy returns to Murphy and target practice. If he's going to take down a panther with only a knife, he's going to make damn sure he knows what he's doing.

As he and Murphy throw their knives, aiming for a specific notch on a nearby tree, Bellamy realizes that Murphy actually has terrible aim. Bellamy isn't sure whether it's that Murphy doesn't actually know how to handle a knife, or if he just has terrible hand-eye coordination, but he suspects the former. Murphy talks a big game, but so far he's lost to Wells in a fistfight, lost to Wells in a knife fight, and now he can't even hit a notch on a tree. Until now, Murphy's confidence had overshadowed this realization, but Bellamy now recognizes that if he's going on a hunting trip, he's going to need the best, and Murphy just doesn't qualify.

"It's that damn kid, alright, he's messing with my head," Murphy defends himself when he misses once again, this time his knife falling flat on the ground. Bellamy isn't convinced by the lame excuse, and to prove it, he throws his axe, hitting the notch straight on, his axe burying itself into the bark of the tree.

Murphy doesn't have a chance to respond, because Atom and Mbege are back with not-so-great news. The missing kids are nowhere to be found, which means grounders are likely to blame. Another thing for Bellamy to worry about, and just another reason why they need to get their wall up before any more kidnappings can occur.

Unfortunately, Bellamy doesn't have the time or resources to send out a proper search party. The camp's number one priorities right now are getting the wall up, and finding food. Bellamy needs the hundred to put in the manual labor to get the wall up today, and he himself needs to go hunting so that they don't all starve to death.

Bellamy makes the call to head out. They'll keep their eyes open for Trina and Pascal, but their focus has to be hunting. When Murphy moves to join the group, Bellamy stops him, claiming that he needs Murphy to stay behind to protect the camp from potential grounder attacks. At this point, Bellamy doesn't believe that the grounders are going to attack in broad daylight, though he can never be too careful. The truth is, he doesn't want Murphy coming along on the hunting trip because he might mess it up. If Murphy lets his arrogance take over and insists on taking down a beast himself, and then misses – well Bellamy's determined to return to camp with meat and Murphy decreases their chances of success.

"Hold on," Murphy calls out as Bellamy is preparing to leave. "If I'm going to be stuck here all day, at least tell me the plan."

"The plan?" Bellamy frowns, not sure what Murphy is referring to.

"For protection. For the wall. For keeping this camp safe. If I'm it's only bodyguard, then I need to know the plan," Murphy insists.

With a sigh, Bellamy indicates to Atom and Mbege that it's going to be a minute and that they should head to the dropship to see if they can scrounge up any more supplies. In the time since Bellamy has put everyone to work, someone has already erected a tent in the clearing. Bellamy is sure it's probably meant as a water storage facility, but since it's empty for the moment, he drags Murphy inside to lay out the plan.

As he explains his vision for the wall, he realizes that it's probably a good idea to have communicated his wishes to at least one person. Whoever's organizing the building of the wall now is doing it solo, and as a result it could end up not having the features Bellamy wants. He explains that he'd like there to be only one point of entry and exit, that the dropship can serve as part of the back wall, and that he'd like there to be lookout points along the wall big enough for them to see out of, but not big enough for the grounders to attack through. Once the wall is up, Bellamy's intention is to make one of their big focuses producing weapons, and hopefully they'll soon have some spears and other things they might be able to use to fight off potential grounder attacks.

As Bellamy is completing his explanation, the two are interrupted by a very angry Octavia barging into the tent.

"What did you do to Atom?" she demands, livid.

Reluctantly, Bellamy nods to Murphy that he should leave, and he rises to face Octavia properly. He'd known this was coming. He'd hoped it would take longer – if he, Atom, and Mbege had gone out hunting earlier when Bellamy had wanted, this wouldn't even be an issue right now. But now that Octavia is here, Bellamy knows he has to address it.

"Atom's fine," he shrugs, figuring that his first strategy has to be to convince Octavia that Atom simply changed his mind about her. When Octavia doesn't buy that, Bellamy relents and tells her the truth. That Atom was punished for disobeying him and that he'll certainly never do it again.

"Next time you decide to go on a power trip, leave me out of it," Octavia demands.

Bellamy opens his mouth to protest that this wasn't a power trip, and that it was about protecting her, but before he can, Jasper screams out, louder than usual, and Octavia runs away to see what's wrong.

Bellamy clenches his jaw and follows her out to the dropship. This whole Jasper thing is getting ridiculous. Clarke says the grounders healed him, and yet he's still moaning and writhing in the dropship, crying out and disturbing the peace. And clearly Clarke hasn't been able to heal him yet, since his cries are only getting louder. Bellamy decides it's time to put an end to it. With Jasper's death, there will of course be a tiny dip in morale, but Bellamy is confident that morale will soar higher than ever once the hundred aren't listening to the sounds of a kid dying twenty-four seven.

As Bellamy enters the main level of the dropship, the kid from before, the friend of the two that went missing, stands to greet him.

"Did you find them?" he asks hopefully.

"Not yet," Bellamy shakes his head. "But we aren't giving up yet."

Though Bellamy suspects that finding Pascal and Trina is a lost cause, he also doesn't want to dash the boy's hopes just yet.

Pushing past him, Bellamy climbs the ladder to the second level, where Jasper is being kept, to assess the situation.

"She's trying to save his life," Bellamy hears Finn say as he appears from under the floor. He looks around to see Clarke, Finn, Wells, Monty, and now Octavia all clustered around Jasper.

"She can't," Bellamy declares. If the efforts of five people still haven't had any effect, Jasper's not going to get better. Besides, Jasper looks close to death anyway, and without a proper doctor, Bellamy doesn't see the point in keeping him alive.

Wells rises to tell Bellamy to back off and Clarke tries to defend Jasper, but Bellamy has to think about the group.

"He's making people crazy," Bellamy insists.

Clarke doesn't seem to care about this either.

Bellamy tries to get Clarke to see reason, but she's insistent that she can save Jasper. Or if she can't, that he'll miraculously get better on his own. Bellamy is struck with how naïve this girl is – and how unprepared for life on the ground she is. If she can't let go when the situation calls for it – if she clings to every life the way she is clinging to Jasper's – well they can't afford to waste their time and efforts on people that are just going to die anyway. Better to end Jasper's suffering and then redirect their attention to something more productive, like foraging for edible and medicinal plants, perhaps. Clarke would be good at that, Bellamy decides.

"If he's not better by tomorrow, I'll kill him myself," Bellamy declares. He won't force Clarke and the others to give up right away, even though he would prefer it that way. Jasper won't get better, and the day he's just given the boy is going to result in a waste of lots of manpower building the wall. But Bellamy is willing to give the group at least a day to come to terms with Jasper's fate before pulling the plug.

With that said, Bellamy turns around and heads back to the main level to get Atom and Mbege and go. He's fed up with all this waiting around and dealing with camp politics. He just needs to get out into the woods and kill something. That'll make him feel better.

"We should bring a few others with us," Bellamy declares to Atom and Mbege. "Grab a few of the stronger ones and let's head out. We need to be back by nightfall."

By the time they all meet up at the edge of camp, there are five of them, including Bellamy – a decent size for a hunting party. And, Bellamy decides, it'll be better to teach some of the others about hunting so that Bellamy doesn't always have to be the one to go out.

They hike through the woods for about an hour before they find anything. Bellamy figures this makes sense. No animal is going to be so close to camp, after witnessing a bunch of humans fall from the sky and take up residence. Plus, the animals would be used to being hunted, since the grounders probably eat meat too, so they would already be programmed with the fight or flight instinct.

After a while, they come across something that looks like a wild pig and as they all spread out and creep forward, Bellamy finds that he has a perfect shot. He calls the kill, raises his axe, and is about to swing when movement behind him startles him and he whirls around, convinced it's a grounder attack, and lets his axe swing and embed itself in a nearby tree.

Once he's completely turned around though, Bellamy sees that it isn't a grounder attack after all, but one of the younger members of their camp.

"Who the hell are you?" Bellamy demands, his heart racing from the fear of that moment. The rest of the hunting party have gone after the pig, which ran away as soon as Bellamy made his move, leaving Bellamy alone with the young girl.

"Charlotte," the girl replies.

"I almost killed you," Bellamy says, pulling his axe from the tree and giving the girl a scary look. He wants her to be afraid. He wants her to realize how foolish it was, not only to follow the hunting party all the way out here, but also to have scared Bellamy like that, especially when he was poised to throw an axe. He's annoyed too, because now if the pig gets away, it'll be Charlotte's fault they don't eat tonight. "Why aren't you back at camp?"

She cites Jasper as the reason, and Bellamy has to admit he doesn't fault her for not wanting to listen to him anymore. Of course, it's still incredibly reckless of her to have come out here like she did, but at least Bellamy understands a little bit.

"I'm not little," she insists, in response to Atom calling her a little girl.

Bellamy has to admit, he likes the girl's attitude. While she looks to be only ten or eleven years old, her voice is strong and she stands her ground well against two significantly older boys, one of whom has become the de facto leader of the camp.

"Okay then," Bellamy says, a small smile playing on his lips. "But you can't hunt without a weapon." He pulls a spare knife from his pocket and hands it to her. She smiles a little bit too then, and Bellamy leads her towards the rest of the group. It's not like he can send her back to camp alone, and anyway, he finds he kind of likes Charlotte.

When he returns to the rest of the group, it's to find that they did not catch the pig. Bellamy isn't too concerned though. He's sure they'll find another creature to kill for dinner. Besides, the pig wasn't all that big anyway. It wouldn't have fed the whole camp. Maybe a third, if they were lucky. They can do better.

They hike for another half an hour without much luck. For some reason, it seems the animals have all gone elsewhere. Of course, Bellamy has no way of knowing how many animals are usually lurking around in the forest, but he can only assume it's more than one panther and one wild pig.

Suddenly, something that sounds like a horn blares and everyone freezes in their tracks.

"Grounders?" Mbege asks, looking around in the trees.

"They could be attacking the camp," another member of the group says. "We should get back."

"If they are, we won't be back in time," Bellamy says, clenching his jaw and hating the fact that from this far away, there's nothing they can do. Is this the moment the grounders have been waiting for? For Bellamy and the other strong members of the group to leave so that they could swoop in and pick off the weak? If so, it's a pretty despicable act, and it certainly doesn't leave Bellamy with a high opinion of them.

Then Bellamy thinks of Octavia.

"But we have to try," he declares, picking up the pace and starting to run in the direction he believes camp to be in.

The others start to follow behind him and they make it a short distance before they come across something unexpected. A wall of yellow mist quickly making its way towards them.

"What is that?" Atom cries out in shock.

"Some kind of aberrant weather phenomenon?" someone else suggests. This is earth post-nuclear apocalypse, so Bellamy supposes it's possible that strange new weather patterns have arisen. The real question is whether it's dangerous or not.

Bellamy steps forward slowly, approaching the oncoming wall of fog, and reaches out his hand to touch it. The minute he does, his hand starts to burn, as if he's just dropped it into a pot of boiling water, he cries out, stumbling backwards and telling everyone to run.

They all run as if their lives depend on it, and Bellamy suspects that they just might. He has no idea where he's going of course, just that he needs to get away from the burning mist. Then he remembers some caves they passed a while back and he shifts course, calling out that there's shelter nearby and hoping that the caves will provide the protection they need. If they don't, there's really no other chance for them this far from camp, so they have to try.

Charlotte is running fast, but keeps stumbling, and Bellamy reaches out a hand to help her. Behind him, the others in the group are faring less well and he can hear Atom screaming out for help. Unfortunately, there's nothing Bellamy can do without putting his own life in danger, and instead, he pushes Charlotte into one of the caves and then follows her in, hoping the rest of them can find their way into the caves before the mist gets them.

"What was it?" Charlotte asks as she tries to catch her breath.

"I don't know," Bellamy replies. "But it burned to the touch."

"Won't it be able to get in here?" Charlotte worries, looking to the cave entrance. Bellamy glances over, and on the outside he can see the yellow fog hovering, but thankfully, it doesn't seem to be trying to make it's way inside.

"I think we're safe in here," Bellamy replies. "At least for now." Who knows what the fog might do later? But even if it decides to seep into the cave, there's really nothing Bellamy or Charlotte can do. There's no way out besides through the fog, and that's not really an option at this point.

"What about the others?" Charlotte asks.

"I'm sure they found shelter in one of the other caves," Bellamy assures her. "There's tons of them around here."

"And everyone back at camp?" Charlotte worries.

"Hey," Bellamy says, crouching down to make himself closer to Charlotte's height and placing his hands on her shoulders. "Stop worrying. I'm sure everyone's fine. The others in the group are probably in the next cave, and everyone back at camp has the dropship for protection. By now they're probably all inside with the doors shut and no way for the fog to creep in."

"Okay," Charlotte nods, clearly trying to be brave despite her fear of the mysterious mist.

But as Bellamy straightens out and starts to explore the little cave they have found themselves trapped in, he does start to worry about the people back at camp, most of all Octavia. When he last saw her, she was in the dropship, insisting that she was going to stay with Jasper instead of helping to build the wall. But Bellamy had been gone from camp for some time now, and she could have left the dropship for any number of reasons. And if she'd been outside when the fog had descended – if she'd been too far from the dropship – Bellamy didn't want to think about it.

"Well there's not much in here," Bellamy declares aloud for Charlotte's sake. "Just a bunch of rocks. But it looks like we'll be here a while, so we might as well settle in."

Bellamy chooses a spot on the ground where there were less rocks, and Charlotte settles into a little niche in the rock wall. Together, they sit and watch the cloud of yellow fog in front of the cave entrance, hoping it will soon lift.

"How much longer are we going to be stuck in here?" Charlotte demands after a couple of hours. It's starting to get dark now, but the fog is still in place, clear as day.

"I don't know," Bellamy replies, just a little bit annoyed. Why does Charlotte think he has all the answers? He's just as in the dark about what's going on as she is. It's not like he's spent more time on earth than her – they've been here the same amount of time. But then Bellamy remembers that Charlotte is young and probably very scared and looking for some reassurance. "Probably not too long though," he adds. "Why don't you try to get some sleep?"

Charlotte seems unsure about the sleep thing, but Bellamy can see that she's tired, and soon her eyes are drooping shut. Leaning back against the cave wall, Bellamy watches her drift off to sleep and is reminded of Octavia. When she was Charlotte's age and younger, Bellamy always used to watch her sleep. Awake, Octavia had always been scared, nervous, always looking up at every noise in case it was the guards coming to arrest her. She's spent her childhood in fear, hiding under the floor to keep people from finding out about her. But in sleep, all that fear would just disappear, and Octavia would be calm, completely at peace. Bellamy had always loved that look of serenity on her face whenever she finally drifted off, and he'd always vowed that one day he would see that look on her face when she was awake.

Now though, the chances of giving Octavia a worry-free life were few and far between. No matter how safe he tried to make camp, the threat of grounders attacking would always be with them. Now there was the new threat of burning fog, not to mention man-eating sea creatures and panthers and all the other terrors earth had yet to reveal. As soon as the ark had sent them all down in that dropship, they'd doomed them all. They weren't giving them all a chance to live. They'd sent them all down here to die – whether they knew it or not. At this point it was just a matter of time.

A scream brought Bellamy out of his thoughts and back to the present. It was Charlotte, screaming in her sleep, and Bellamy called out to her, trying to wake her. It was just a nightmare, he knew, nothing more. Octavia used to have them all the time – nightmares of being found out and being thrown in the sky box. Of course, that was before her nightmare was made a reality. Bellamy had no idea what she dreams about anymore.

Charlotte wakes up and immediately apologizes and Bellamy feels terrible. He tries to imagine Charlotte's life – what could have made her the way she is that she apologizes for having nightmares – but he can't.

"Does it happen often?" he asks, concerned.

Charlotte sighs and Bellamy knows the answer is yes. Bellamy's big brother instinct suddenly kicks in and he is overwhelmed with the need to make it better for Charlotte, to help her to deal with her fears.

"What are you scared of?" Bellamy asks. He waits a beat, and sees that Charlotte doesn't want to tell him, so he backtracks. He doesn't need to know what it is anyway. Whatever she's afraid of, there's a sure-fire way of handling any fear. Standing up to it.

Bellamy tells her to pull out her knife and he shows her how to use it as a weapon against whatever demons are haunting her. Bellamy knows from experience that a weapon can make you feel powerful, and when you feel powerful, you can conquer almost anything. It's how Bellamy had felt those first two days on the ground when he'd had his gun. That is, before Wells went and wasted all his bullets.

"Slay your demons, kid," Bellamy says, pulling away and returning to his previous position. "Then you'll be able to sleep."

With that, Charlotte nods, and goes back to sleep, her fingers curled around her knife and holding on tight. Bellamy smiles and decides that he should probably try to get some sleep too. The fog is still visible and probably isn't going to lift until morning at the earliest, and Bellamy doesn't want to be too tired to make the return trip to camp. So he stretches out, pillowing his arms under his head, and closes his eyes, hoping none of his own demons decide to show up in his dreams tonight.

The next morning, Bellamy awakes to find that the fog has cleared.

"Charlotte!" he shakes the girl awake. With the way back to camp clear, Bellamy knows he needs to get back and regroup with everyone before another hunting party can be considered – after all, they still don't have anything to show for their expedition.

Once Charlotte is up, Bellamy leads her out of the cave and into the forest, hoping he can find his way back to camp after getting all turned around. Bellamy calls out, hoping that one or some of the others are nearby as well, and he hears someone call back to him. Bellamy is immediately relieved to know that the others managed to find shelter too and are safe. He hurries over to meet them and finds three of the four.

"Where's Atom?" Bellamy asks.

The look Mbege gives him tells Bellamy that they'd been hoping Atom was with him. And if Atom wasn't with Bellamy, then he's still out there. Bellamy hopes he managed to find shelter alone, but he remembers how Atom screamed out to him back when the fog had first descended, and Bellamy worries that Atom got caught in the fog.

"Alright, let's spread out and look for Atom," Bellamy orders. He won't leave until he knows Atom's fate, good or bad. To return to camp without even looking for him – risking leaving Atom wandering around alone, unable to find his way back to camp – Bellamy isn't going to let that happen.

They all split up and start to comb the forest. Bellamy is about to start checking the other caves, in case Atom is inside one, still asleep or something, when Charlotte suddenly starts to scream.

Taking off at a run, Bellamy is at her side in minutes and looks down at the thing she's screaming about to find that Atom was in fact caught in the burning fog. He's laying on the ground, his skin covered in painful looking red blisters, and he's struggling to breathe. Bellamy runs to him, crouching down on the forest floor by his side, desperate to do something to help the boy.

For everything that Atom's done wrong – mainly taking advantage of Octavia and her innocence – he's also done a lot of good for the camp. And he's one of the few people down here on earth that Bellamy has had the chance to get to know. He's one of Bellamy's closest allies here on the ground, along with Murphy and Mbege.

Atom's face is scrunched up in pain, his eyes are glassy, and Bellamy can tell that the boy is dying. He continues to look at him, desperately trying to figure out what he can do to heal Atom, when Atom starts to mutter something. Because of the trouble he's having breathing, Bellamy can't make out what he's saying at first, so he leans in closer in order to hear the words better.

"Kill me," Atom pleads, his expression pained.

Bellamy's heart starts to pound and his hands start to sweat once he's processed the request. From the minute Bellamy saw Atom, he'd known that in all likelihood there was nothing he could do for him. And Atom knows it too – he knows that he's going to die, and he's probably experiencing a very painful death. Bellamy knows the logical thing to do – the merciful thing to do – would be to just end it right now, to put Atom out of his misery and kill him. But Bellamy can't do it.

It's shocking to Bellamy to realize this fact. All this time, Bellamy had thought that he was staying cold and hard and only thinking about the good of the camp, about keeping everyone safe. Bellamy had thought that the only one he cared anything about was Octavia and that the rest were just the means to an end – keeping Octavia protected. But now that he's faced with the hard reality of Atom's situation, he realizes that he can't kill Atom because he's come to care about the boy. Obviously not the way he cares for Octavia, but as a friend. And Bellamy can't bear the thought of killing one of his only friends.

Bellamy hears the others approach and he rises, thinking that maybe one of them can do it in his place. He knows it's a lot to ask of Mbege or one of the other hunters, but after taking the Chancellor's life, Bellamy won't – Bellamy can't – take another.

Charlotte steps closer and Bellamy worries that this is all too much for her young self to handle. But he doesn't have the time or the energy at the moment to cover her eyes, because he's so focused on his friend on the ground, wishing there's something he could do to ease his suffering without killing him.

Charlotte reaches into her pocket and pulls out the knife Bellamy gave her and places it in Bellamy's hand. The feel of it settling into his hand feels wrong. Bellamy doesn't like it. But he knows that as a leader, he has to do this. He can't pass it off to Mbege or Jones or someone else. He has to show that he's strong. He has to show that he can make the hard choices, even though he doesn't want to. He has to show them why they're following him.

"Go back to camp," Bellamy orders them. If he's going to do this, he's not going to do it with an audience. Atom deserves better than to die with a group of teenagers gawking at him. Atom deserves to die with dignity, whatever dignity Bellamy can give him.

Once everyone has left, Bellamy kneels back down on the ground next to Atom, knife in hand, and tries to work up the nerve to do what needs to be done. Atom pleads with him to get it over quickly, even turns his head to the side, giving Bellamy a perfect view of his carotid artery.

Bellamy freezes.

He knows he can't do it. He knows he'll never work up the nerve to do it. Atom will die here in painful agony before Bellamy can work up the courage to slice through his neck.

Suddenly, Bellamy feels someone watching him from behind, and he looks over his shoulder to see Clarke standing there, her face ashen. She approaches, and Bellamy clenches his jaw. This whole situation is hard enough without Clarke coming in and insisting she can heal Atom too, just like Jasper. Bellamy doesn't think he'll be able to handle it if Clarke forces him to bring Atom back to camp, to put him in the dropship next to Jasper, and then to wait the hours, or even the days, until Atom's time comes. As the daughter of a doctor, Clarke only sees the potential for healing. As someone who's experienced what real life is like, Bellamy knows that here on the ground, with no medical supplies, and in his condition, Atom doesn't stand a chance.

Clarke kneels down on Atom's other side, and despite his conviction that there's nothing that can save Atom, Bellamy looks to her, hoping that she'll think of a way to save him. From the expression on her face, he can immediately tell that there isn't one, and she knows it.

Atom turns to face Clarke, pleading with her now instead of Bellamy to end his life. Clarke looks away and Bellamy knows she won't have the guts to make the call. He should just send her back to camp like he did the others. Let her get out of here before things become too messy. Because in this situation, Clarke is the princess and Bellamy is the executioner. And the princess always turns away when the executioner raises his scythe.

But then Clarke is talking to Atom, telling him she can help, and Bellamy watches in silent amazement as she starts to hum and stroke the dying boy's hair. She takes the knife from Bellamy's slack grip and holds tight to it as she continues to stare directly into Atom's eyes. Her humming never wavers as she slowly inserts the knife into Atom's neck and then removes it, letting him bleed out onto the forest floor. And even then, she continues to stroke Atom's hair, lulling him to sleep as gently as she can.

It takes a few minutes for Atom to stop breathing, and only when Clarke is satisfied that he's gone does she stop humming. She stares at Atom a few moments longer before looking up at Bellamy.

"I'm sorry," she says softly. "I know you were friends."

Bellamy doesn't know what to say. So many emotions are rolling around inside of him, and he doesn't even know where to start processing them. Of course, that Atom is dead has shocked Bellamy. Only moment ago did he find him, and already the boy is gone. Bellamy's sure it'll take him awhile to deal with the loss of his friend and ally.

But what's really rendered Bellamy speechless is the way Clarke handled the situation. This whole time, he'd completely misjudged her. He'd thought she was just a princess in an ivory tower, that she didn't belong down here, that she didn't have what it takes to survive on a hostile earth. So far, Bellamy had viewed Clarke as a thorn in his side, always opposing him at every turn and trying to turn the hundred against him. But now Bellamy is seeing a whole new side of Clarke.

Clarke is strong. She's brave, and she is clearly capable of making the tough decisions. All this time, Bellamy thought that she was only keeping Jasper alive out of some naïve optimism, thinking that he would heal himself, or her mother would materialize out of thin air to guide her through his treatment. But after watching her with Atom, Bellamy knows that she wouldn't be keeping Jasper alive unless she knew there was a real chance he could survive.

"How did you know what to do?" Bellamy asks, completely at a loss. Clarke had been so calm, so composed. When he'd been faced with the prospect of killing Atom, Bellamy had frozen. He'd known he'd never be able to go through with it, and Clarke didn't even bat an eye.

"My mom's had to deal with terminal cases before," Clarke replies. "Sometimes I would assist. I never did anything big, mostly just cleaned things and fetched supplies when she needed them, but I've seen her help more than a few people die. Normally she'd inject them with drugs instead of stick them with a knife, but my options were more limited."

Bellamy nods. He supposes this makes sense. He knows that Clarke has spent some time working in medical. It's why she's the self-appointed medical expert in camp. And Bellamy knows the ark's policy on terminal illness patients. They get euthanized. Once they can no longer be useful members of society, they're just using up the breathable air. So Bellamy shouldn't be surprised that Clarke has witnessed a mercy killing before.

"We should get back to camp," Bellamy declares, standing up abruptly. "We need to regroup now that the fog's lifted."

Bellamy hadn't even thought to wonder what Clarke was even doing out in the forest instead of sitting by Jasper's side back at camp, and he decides that it doesn't matter. He doesn't really want to talk to her right now. He just wants to get out of here and not have to look at Atom's lifeless body on the forest floor anymore.

"What about him?" Clarke gestures to Atom.

Wordlessly, Bellamy bends down and picks Atom up, heaving him over his shoulder for leverage. It's not the most dignified of ways to carry a dead body back to camp, but Bellamy can't leave him out here for the grounders to find, and he's not about to ask Clarke to help.

The walk back to camp is a silent one. Bellamy doesn't want to talk and Clarke doesn't insist on it. To be perfectly honest with himself, Bellamy feels a little ashamed. He should have been able to be a man and take care of Atom himself. That he needed Clarke's help proves that he's not as strong as he needs to be to be a leader. And if he can't make the hard choices in situations like this, how can he expect to protect Octavia on such a dangerous planet?

As they near camp, Clarke stops and grabs Bellamy's arm, forcing him to come to a stop as well.

"It's not your fault," she says, much to Bellamy's confusion. Why would she say that? Obviously it wasn't Bellamy's fault that Atom got caught in the burning fog. There was nothing Bellamy could have done without dooming himself as well as Atom. But the sound of Atom calling out to him as he reached the cave entrance continues to haunt Bellamy's subconscious anyway.

"I know," Bellamy responds. "Now go help Jasper." And with that, he turns and walks into camp.

As soon as he passes through the wall – which isn't finished, but is coming along nicely – Bellamy orders the nearest member of the camp to help Clarke with whatever she needs to heal Jasper. She claims to have found some kind of medicinal seaweed, and after what she did with Atom, Bellamy is confident that she'll either cure Jasper or make the call herself to end his misery.

Bellamy lays Atom down on the ground and Wells volunteers to dig a grave for him, for which Bellamy is grateful. He's not sure he could handle that on top of everything else he's been through today.

When Octavia appears, going on about how some of the others are trying to kill Jasper, Bellamy's heart sinks. For all that he, Octavia, and Atom have been through together, he knows that this is going to be hard on Octavia. She may not have known the boy long, but Octavia had feelings for Atom. Very possibly the feelings she'd felt for him had been the first she'd ever felt for a boy.

"Octavia. Just – just stay there, please," Bellamy pleads as she runs forward. He moves to block her path, but she pushes against him, knowing that something is wrong. Bellamy wants to shield her from this, to make it so that she doesn't have to feel the pain of losing her first crush in this way. But Bellamy knows there's nothing he can do to protect her from her emotions. She'll find out what happened sooner or later.

She pushes past him and crouches down to pull the jacket from Atom's face. Bellamy had put it there mainly to hide the visible signs of blistering left behind by the fog, hoping not to cause a panic. From the gasps he hears once Octavia removes the jacket, he knows that his effort was in vain.

The look on Octavia's face breaks Bellamy's heart and he wishes there was something he could do for her, to help her, but he knows he can't. She'll blame him for this, he knows. She'll think he made sure Atom got caught in the fog as further punishment for being with Octavia. As much as Bellamy wants to hold Octavia, to do his best to comfort her, to stroke her hair like he used to whenever she was upset, he can't. Because she won't let him. Because she needs to blame someone, and right now Bellamy's the perfect target for her pain.

To distract himself from the pain he feels on Octavia's behalf, Bellamy turns to Murphy to check in. He wants to know how things went here at camp, whether anyone got caught in the fog, how the building of the wall is going, that sort of thing. Then he asks about Jasper.

"I tried to take him out, but your psycho little sister – "

Bellamy doesn't let Murphy finish. He's on him in seconds, grabbing him by his shirt and pushing him in anger. Nobody – nobody – calls Octavia a psycho, especially not when she's grieving, and especially not when her only crime is watching over a sick boy. Bellamy may not be able to protect Octavia from her grief over Atom, but he sure as hell can protect her from guys like Murphy thinking they can say whatever they want about her.

Bellamy leaves then. He knows the others will take care of Atom, that Clarke will take care of Jasper and that anything else can wait until morning. He heads over to the water tent and bursts in, ordering those inside to move the water barrels outside the tent. He needs somewhere where he can be alone and with Jasper and all his nursemaids occupying the dropship, it's just not an option anymore.

The two girls that were inside the tent keeping watch over the water immediately jump to attention and drag the water containers outside in record time. Alone in the tent with nothing but some bits of cloth surrounding him on four sides and the dirt floor of the ground underneath him, Bellamy sits down and drops his head into his hands.

When did everything get so messed up? Just yesterday he was doing alright. Octavia was mad at him for turning Atom against her, but she would have gotten over that eventually. The wall was in progress, water and food were his only priorities, and he knew where he stood with everyone in the camp. Now Bellamy isn't so sure.

Murphy seems more like an enemy than an ally – he verbally attacks Octavia and almost fights back against Bellamy. Bellamy knows that Murphy has a strong personality and isn't going to remain complacent taking orders from someone else for long, and Bellamy worries about when that day might come. Bellamy needs strength on his side, and Murphy has it. If Murphy turns against him – Bellamy's not sure he'd be able to win in a knife fight like Wells did.

And then there's Clarke. Yesterday she was the enemy, and now Bellamy is wondering if he should consider her to be an ally. Obviously, she's not 100% on board with Bellamy's plans – she wants the wristbands to stay on, for the ark to follow them all down, and Bellamy obviously can't have that. But she also helped Bellamy today, and she is clearly a lot more capable than Bellamy realized. And she has a lot of supporters in the camp. Working with her, rather than against her, might be a more effective battle strategy.

And finally, there's Atom. Though he and Bellamy had their disagreements, Bellamy had considered him an ally – a friend. Death isn't new to those of them on the ground. They'd lost a few upon landing, and obviously with Jasper sick and dying, the reality of death had been surrounding camp for days. But losing someone you don't know and losing someone you know are two very different things, and Bellamy feels Atom's absence strongly. Not to mention, without Atom, Bellamy's down a supporter and he'll now need to find someone new to pull into his inner circle. Maybe more if Murphy keeps on the way he's going.

Too exhausted to keep processing his thoughts, Bellamy lays down and tries to go to sleep. It's tough at first, because the rest of camp is still awake and loud, but Bellamy is so tired it doesn't even matter. It doesn't take long before Bellamy is snoring and dreaming of better days on the ark, with his mother and Octavia, reading tales of Greek mythology or the Roman Empire.


	4. Murphy's Law

Chapter 4: Murphy's Law

" _Grounder attack_!"

Bellamy is on his feet in seconds at the cry, jumping to attention and grabbing his axe from the ground where he's left it before going to sleep. His first thought is that there's not much he's going to be able to do with just an axe. Not if the grounders have weapons of their own – weapons they know how to use. But his second thought is that it doesn't matter. He'll fight until his last breath if he has to.

Bellamy bursts out of his tent to find the camp crawling with chaos. People are screaming, people are crying, people are running around like mad. Bellamy pushes through the crowd, searching everywhere for a sign of the grounders, trying to figure out where the fighting is happening, but he only sees his own people.

"Bellamy!" It's Mbege who calls for him, running towards him frantically. "Bellamy you have to come. It's Wells. They got Wells."

Bellamy feels himself grow cold as he follows Mbege at a run through the wall and to the lookout point where Wells was supposed to be keeping watch. He stops short when he sees him. There are plenty of others clustered around, but Bellamy still has a clear view of the prince. He lies on the ground, eyes open and glassy, with a huge gash in his neck and a pool of blood soaking into the dirt beneath him.

"What happened?" Bellamy demands, forcing his racing heart to slow now that he knows the camp isn't in immediate danger.

"Nobody knows exactly," Mbege replies. "He was found like this. Obviously it was the grounders though."

"Alright," Bellamy nods. "No more watches outside the wall. Come nightfall, everyone's on the inside. We'll set up lookout points from within, but I don't want to leave anyone else exposed.

Mbege nods and Bellamy looks down again at the dead boy with mixed emotions. A part of him is glad that Wells is dead. The prince was always challenging him and trying to get the rest of camp to follow him instead of Bellamy. Bellamy would have an easier time without Wells blocking him at every turn. The rest of Bellamy is disgusted with himself for even thinking that. A boy – one of their own – is dead. It's a tragedy and Bellamy should be treating it as such. Not to mention, it's clear that the grounders have no intention of leaving them alone. Bellamy had hoped that the lack of movement on their part since Jasper meant that they were going to leave them in peace, but clearly that isn't the case.

"Where's Clarke?" Bellamy asks then. For all the apparent troubles the two had, Clarke is the closest thing Wells has to a family down here and she should be at his side. Bellamy finds it odd that she still hasn't made her appearance and he looks around, as if expecting her to appear from behind a tree or something.

"She's in the dropship with Jasper," Mbege replies. "I don't think anyone's told her yet. Do you want me to get her?"

Bellamy considers for a moment and then shakes his head. For some reason, the idea of having Mbege break the news to the princess seems too harsh, too cold. And Clarke shouldn't have to see Wells out here like this. They'll bring him back to camp, close his eyes and cover his neck wound, and then Bellamy will break the news himself.

"Murphy!" Bellamy calls out. "Start digging another grave."

Murphy rolls his eyes and makes some comment about gravedigging being beneath him, but Bellamy doesn't know who else to ask. Up until now, Wells had been their resident gravedigger, and Bellamy doesn't feel comfortable asking someone he barely knows to do it. Besides, at least he knows Murphy isn't going to be crying over Wells' death. In fact, he's probably rejoicing.

Together with Mbege, Bellamy lifts Wells up and carries him the short distance back to camp, depositing him on the ground near the door to camp. Bellamy can't just leave Wells out in the open, but he's also not about to bring him far when he's just going to have to be buried soon.

Bellamy orders Mbege to clean Wells up, make him presentable, and he heads towards the dropship. He has no idea how he's going to do this, but he knows he has to, and he wants it to come from him. He climbs up to the second level, where Jasper is slowly healing, and finds the room packed full of people. Jasper and Clarke are there obviously, but so are Finn, Monty, and Octavia.

Octavia.

Bellamy is shocked when he realizes he had yet to think of her that morning. Up until now, the only person he'd been concerned about was Clarke, finding out about Wells. But with Atom's dead so fresh, Bellamy realizes that he should have worried about Octavia's reaction as well. Unfortunately, Bellamy doesn't have the time to coddle Octavia, because Clarke is going to take this so much harder and she has to be the one Bellamy breaks it to first.

"Clarke?" Bellamy says, startling everyone. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Is it the grounders?" Clarke asks. "We heard the screaming, but it all died down really quick. I'm assuming they didn't actually attack, or else we'd all be dead right now."

"Clarke, I really need to speak to you privately," Bellamy insists. "Can you come down to level one for a second?"

"Whatever it is, just say it," Clarke insists, her tone a little annoyed. "I'm a little busy here looking after Jasper, if you didn't notice."

"I'd really rather – " Bellamy begins, not wanting to break the news with so many others listening in, not to mention his sister, who he'd have liked to break the news to himself later.

"Just spit it out," Clarke insists, whirling around. "What's so important anyway?"

And now Bellamy is annoyed, because Clarke is being difficult and she's not letting him do this the way it needs to be done. So in a moment of anger and frustration, Bellamy decides to just blurt it out.

"Wells is dead," he declares, his voice hard. "The grounders got him."

And suddenly there are four faces (Jasper is asleep) all staring at him, aghast. Clarke asks him to repeat himself and he does, a little more gently this time, but the damage has already been done. Clarke doesn't believe him at first, insists that he's lying, or mistaken, but when Bellamy assures her for the third time that Wells is in fact dead, her face pales and she pushes past him, out of the dropship, insisting that she needs to see him for herself.

Left alone with the others, Bellamy looks to each of their faces in turn, trying to gauge their reactions. Finn looks sad, Monty looks scared, and Octavia's expression is impossible to read.

"O – " Bellamy attempts, reaching for his sister in the hopes that she'll let him comfort her. Unfortunately, she still isn't over the blaming him for Atom's death, and now with Wells' death to add to the list, Bellamy's sure it'll be a while before she opens up around him again. She pulls away, climbs up to the third level of the dropship, which is empty at the moment, and shuts the door, locking it behind her.

For some reason, Jasper chooses that exact moment to stir, open his eyes, and look around at the ashen faces around him. He frowns, looking at Bellamy as if he shouldn't be there and then asks, "what did I miss?"

Bellamy can't handle being in the dropship anymore. Frantically, he grabs for the ladder and lowers himself back down to the first level, hurrying outside into the fresh air. Unfortunately, being outside doesn't help much, as he now has a perfect view of Clarke leaning over the body of her best friend and sobbing uncontrollably. And Bellamy knows he just can't be around this right now. He needs to get out of here. So he sprints to a part of the wall that's still very low and climbs over it, pushing forward into the forest, putting as much distance as he can between himself and camp.

Bellamy can't do this. He can't be their leader. He can't be the one in charge, the one putting people in life or death situations. He can't be the one who has to break bad news to people, the one who's always going to be the bad guy in everyone's eyes. For once, Bellamy just wishes he was a regular guy. Just one of the hundred, one of the group. But he's not one of the hundred. He wasn't even supposed to be here. And yet here he is anyway.

He should have run away with Octavia when he'd had the chance. They could have gotten away from camp, made a home for themselves in the forest somewhere. Just the two of them, Bellamy can handle. He's always been Octavia's big brother. But he can't be a big brother to a hundred kids. He can't protect everyone. He can't be expected to keep everyone safe all the time. For all the speeches he'd made about sticking together and fighting against the grounders and their collective strength, Bellamy knew that none of them stood a chance.

He's a fraud. He spouts out all this nonsense about how they're all going to be just fine without the ark's help, but he knows it's not true. He's convinced these kids to follow him, even though he doesn't have any of their best interests at heart. And it's going to get them all killed.

Bellamy knows he's probably needed back at camp. People are going to need direction, comfort, reassurance in the wake of the grounder attack on Wells. People need a leader to help them through this tragedy. But Bellamy can't do that right now. He's not even sure he can pull himself together, let alone a hundred others.

So instead of going back to camp, Bellamy decides to go hunting. Camp still needs food – that reality hasn't changed – and it'll give him time to process everything that's gone on and to pull himself back into the leader he needs to be – that they need him to be.

It takes a while before he comes across anything, and then finally he stumbles upon a deer, eating grass from a clearing. Bellamy approaches it cautiously, trying not to make a sound or else he'll scare it away, and once he's close enough, he throws his axe, watching as it flies through the air and embeds itself int the deer's head.

The deer goes down and Bellamy rejoices because now he can bring home dinner.

Though he's not sure he's entirely ready to rejoin camp, Bellamy knows he can't stay outside the walls long, especially since it's going to be getting dark soon, and the grounders could be out here. So Bellamy slowly drags the deer back to camp, mustering all his strength as he does so, knowing he's going to need it once he's back there and he's the leader again.

When he returns, it's not to the chaos he's expecting. Most of the campers are hard at work on the wall, which is looking better and better every time Bellamy sees it. Some others are lugging barrels and buckets of water to the water area. Others still are in the process of erecting tents all around camp, some made of tarps from the dropship like Bellamy's and some made from leaves and branches found in the forest. And while Clarke is nowhere to be seen, Bellamy is convinced she's up in the dropship looking over Jasper with the rest of them.

"Where have you been?" Mbege demands as soon as Bellamy enters camp. "We looked everywhere for you. I thought the grounders might have gotten you."

"I went hunting," Bellamy replies, gesturing to his deer. "We needed food."

"You should have told someone," Mbege insists, as if he's Bellamy's father or something.

"Just cook the meat," Bellamy insists, walking away before Mbege upsets him with his unnecessary concern.

Bellamy decides to take a lap of camp and assess where they're all at. For once, it's really starting to look like a real camp, and not like a clearing they all just landed in. A few different fires are already burning around camp, and stacks of firewood next to each of them tells Bellamy that someone thought ahead and collected it sometime today. It must have been Mbege who took charge today, Bellamy decides. Murphy would never be so forward thinking, and besides, the day Murphy was in charge, nothing was as organized as it is now.

Bellamy decides that Mbege rightfully deserves the title of second-in-command.

The deer meat is soon ready to eat and Mbege calls to everyone that work is over for the day and it's time for dinner. Everyone gathers together, each taking a skewer of the meat, and Bellamy finds it fascinating how in a day, this camp went from being a chaotic mess to being a well-oiled machine. He's grateful of course. It's an environment he'd been trying to foster these past couple of days. But he's a little annoyed that it took his absence to bring everyone onto the same page.

Mbege confers with Bellamy quickly about the watch schedule, suggesting that they have three people on watch at all times from now on. Bellamy agrees. A schedule of three shifts of three is quickly organized for the evening, and soon, Bellamy is retiring to his tent, which is still completely empty, – he'll need to do something about a makeshift bed in the morning – closing his eyes, and falling asleep.

Slowly but surely, life in camp starts to fall into a pattern. Most people are assigned to work on building the wall – Bellamy wants it completed as soon as possible. Some are relegated to water duty each day, some to campfire wood collecting, and a few of the stronger campers are sent out on hunting trips. Watch schedules are arranged for each night to ensure the camp's safety and Bellamy can feel a sense of community growing.

Everything is going extremely well, until Octavia and Jasper come running up to him with looks of terror in their eyes.

"We found something you need to see," Octavia declares. She's holding something in her hand, but it's wrapped up in a piece of cloth, so Bellamy can't tell what it is.

"Let's go to my tent," Bellamy suggests, leading Octavia and Jasper to privacy. He can tell by their expressions that whatever this is, it's something best not revealed in front of the whole of camp.

"Clarke should be here for this too," Jasper declares.

Bellamy considers protesting, saying that he's in charge and Clarke's just the camp doctor. But when Jasper beckons Clarke over, Bellamy lets her join them, figuring that he doesn't even know what it is yet, and maybe it's something that actually concerns Clarke.

They arrive in the tent, which Bellamy has finally managed to furnish a little bit, with a makeshift bed and a table. They gather around the table and with a deep breath, Octavia places the bundle she's been carrying down.

The cloth parts as she lets go and the contents of the bundle become visible to the rest of them. Two severed, bloody fingers. And then Jasper tosses a knife onto the table next to them.

"This was found with it," he declares. "We found them near where Wells' body was found."

Clarke immediately picks it up and examines it. Her conclusion is that the knife has to be one of theirs. The metal used to make the knife came from the dropship. And the logical conclusion from that – Wells was killed by someone inside the camp, not outside it. The grounders aren't responsible for the attack.

Thoughts race around in Bellamy's head. Whoever did it must have done it for a reason. But any number of campers had good reason to hate Wells. Not only is his father responsible for so many awful things, but Wells himself has been self-righteous and interfering since they landed. In fact, if Bellamy didn't know any better, he might suspect himself of offing Wells. And he's sure more than one camper would come to a similar conclusion.

"We need to keep it quiet," Bellamy declares. Telling people will only create more chaos, and camp life has finally fallen into a comfortable routine. If Bellamy can route out the culprit on his own, then he can deal with him on his own terms, without everyone else getting involved.

Clarke has other ideas. Bellamy argues with her, trying to convince her that starting a riot isn't the way to go about this. But Clarke's already made up her mind about who's responsible. There are initials on the blade – initials that when Bellamy sees them, he realizes he recognizes. And he's not at all surprised that the killer is Murphy.

Bellamy follows Clarke outside and watches passively as she verbally attacks Murphy in front of the whole camp. Bellamy wants to tell Clarke to stop, to do this in private. But he doesn't, because from her first sentence, he can hear the pain and the hurt in her voice and he realizes that she needs Murphy's treason to be publicly acknowledged. For the grounders to have killed Wells – that's a tragedy. For Murphy to have taken her best friend from her – Bellamy doesn't have a name for it, but he knows it's probably ten times worse.

Murphy tries to appeal to Bellamy, but there's not much Bellamy can say. It's obvious that Murphy is the culprit. It's no surprise to Bellamy really. He'd been expecting something like this to happen with Murphy soon, he'd just hoped he could stop the boy before he took things too far.

But suddenly, before Bellamy can even process what's happening, the crowd is taking over, crying out that Murphy needs to float for his crime. And this is why Bellamy wanted to take care of things in private. They punch him, beat him, kick him until he's lying helpless on the ground. Then they gag him, tie him up, and start pushing him down towards the trees.

And there's nothing Bellamy can do to stop it.

"Bell, do something!" Octavia cries out, pulling on his jacket desperately.

But Bellamy is torn. If he stops this, not only will he be stuck with finding an alternative punishment for Murphy, but he'll make himself appear weak to the crowd. If he can't prove himself capable of following through with punishment for the guilty, then they'll think he isn't strong enough to be in charge.

"You can stop this!" Clarke cries. "They'll listen to you!"

Bellamy isn't so sure. The crowd is so riled up right now – anything he says would just fall on deaf ears. And as Bellamy looks up at Murphy, he thinks about how much easier life would be if Murphy was dead. He wouldn't be spending every waking moment waiting for the day Murphy decides to turn on him, to take charge himself. He wouldn't be worrying about what Murphy's doing, wouldn't have to constantly supervise him in case he cracked or did something too extreme.

So when the crowd starts calling for Bellamy to be the one to finish it, to kick the crate out from underneath Murphy, Bellamy steps forward with confidence. Clarke tries to reason with him, but Bellamy's already made up his mind. He needs to do this. For the good of the camp, and for the sake of remaining the leader in the eyes of his people, he needs to be the one to carry out the sentence.

With one swift kick, Bellamy knocks the crate out from under Murphy. The rope he's hanging from stretches and then Bellamy is forced to watch the boy's body twitch and struggle as the air is slowly cut off from his lungs.

Clarke pushes him, screaming about how he can stop this, but Bellamy's had enough of Clarke for one day. It's her own fault that it's come to this result. She's the one who wanted to do this in public. Bellamy would have been happy to privately accuse Murphy and come up with a suitable punishment the way he did with Atom when he was inappropriate with Octavia. Clarke's the one who wanted the whole camp to know of Murphy's treachery, and so while Bellamy's the one who kicked the crate out from under him, Clarke's the reason he got strung up on the tree in the first place.

Suddenly, just as it's about to be too late to save Murphy, a voice rings out, clear as day against the shouting and screaming of the rest of the crowd. It's Charlotte, claiming that she killed Wells, and not Murphy. And Bellamy freezes. Partly because he can't believe that a little girl like Charlotte could have been so cold-hearted as to kill someone. Partly because he's just jumped to conclusions about Murphy and he's paralyzed at the thought that he might have killed someone for a crime they didn't commit.

Clarke springs into action, cutting Murphy down and untying him, but Bellamy can't move. Because he's just realized something else. He's the one who told Charlotte what to do. He's the one who gave Charlotte a knife. He's the one who told her to slay her demons. He's the one that told her that killing was an okay way of getting rid of nightmares. Of course, he'd meant it figuratively, but he should have realized that a little girl like Charlotte would take his advice literally. Which means that when he thinks about it, Bellamy killed Wells. Bellamy killed the Chancellor, he almost killed Murphy, and now he's killed Wells.

"Bellamy, we have to get her out of here."

The voice belongs to Clarke, but Bellamy can barely process the words she's saying. Without even realizing what's going on, Clarke is pushing him towards Charlotte, and then she's grabbing Charlotte by the hand and pulling her away in the direction of Bellamy's tent. As soon as he remembers how to use his legs, Bellamy sprints after them, realizing that Clarke is right. They need to get Charlotte away from the crowd before Murphy gets back on his feet again. Even now, Murphy is pulling the gag from his mouth and pushing himself into a sitting position.

Soon Bellamy finds himself inside his tent with Clarke, Charlotte, and for some reason Finn as well. Clarke is pacing the short distance from one side of the tent to the other. Finn is staring at Charlotte like she's got two heads, and Bellamy just feels responsible.

In no time, Bellamy can hear Murphy calling for blood and he panics. He doesn't want to hang Charlotte. He didn't want to hang Murphy to begin with, but once the crowd took over, he did what he had to do. Bellamy isn't so sure he can follow through this time though, knowing that it's his own bad advice that led Charlotte to her murderous act.

Charlotte pleads with Bellamy not to let Murphy kill her, and while Bellamy doesn't want Charlotte to die for this, he isn't sure how to call off Murphy. He only knows he has to try.

"It's gonna be okay," Bellamy assures her, crouching down to her height. "Just stay with them," he looks over at Clarke and Finn.

Bellamy just needs a little time. He's confident that he can get the majority of the camp to agree that killing Charlotte is not an appropriate punishment. He's not convinced that he can change Murphy's mind on the matter, but maybe if enough of the camp is against the idea, Murphy will feel forced to bend to the pressure. Of course, eventually Charlotte will have to be punished in some way. But that's a matter to deal with at another time. For now, she needs to stay somewhere that Murphy can't find her – at least until Bellamy can calm him down.

Having said his piece, Bellamy ducks under the tent flap and walks out to meet Murphy, who has the entire camp behind him. His first tactic is to assert his authority. He tells Murphy in a strong voice to back off. He knows it won't work though – Murphy no longer respects his authority. He was on the fringe already before this whole debacle began, and after Bellamy kicked the crate out from under him, he knows there's no way Murphy would ever follow him again.

Then Murphy calls for a vote – all in favor of killing Charlotte. Bellamy's gut clenches as he waits to see how many hands raise and he's relieved to see that it's not too many. Unfortunately, one of the raised hands belongs to Mbege. Bellamy worries what that might mean for his relationship with his second-in-command, but he doesn't have time to worry about that since Murphy has begun screaming at the crowd, angry that they aren't all on board with his plan to hang Charlotte.

"Hey! Murphy! Murphy. It's over," Bellamy insists, walking right up to him. If Murphy can't see that he's lost the support of the group, then he's either an idiot or crazy.

Murphy takes a step back. A strange expression crosses his face, and then he looks down at the ground, as if in defeat. He holds up his hands and swings them out by his side. "Whatever you say boss," he mutters.

Bellamy nods and turns around, relieved that the confrontation is over. He'd been worried that Murphy would put up a bigger fight. He knows it's not over completely. He's won the battle today, but the war is still being waged. Murphy won't go back to being a happy citizen of Bellamy's little camp after almost being hanged. He won't want to follow Bellamy's orders anymore. But at least for now, they're in agreement about Charlotte and Bellamy can deal with her properly.

Bellamy takes a few steps back towards the tent to get Charlotte, Clarke, and Finn when suddenly something hard smashes into his head and everything goes black.

When Bellamy wakes up, he's lying on the ground and Octavia is leaning over him, her expression worried.

"Bell! You're awake!" she cries in relief when he opens his eyes.

Bellamy frowns, unable to remember what happened for a moment. Then everything comes rushing back and he rushes to get up. Unfortunately, the speed with which he pushes himself up causes him to get dizzy and he has to brace himself against the ground as he winces and closes his eyes to calm his pounding headache.

"What happened?" he demands, looking around for Murphy and Mbege and the others that want Charlotte dead.

Octavia visibly pales as she answers. "They went out to look for Charlotte. They – they're gonna kill her Bell."

Ignoring the pounding in his head, Bellamy pushes himself off the ground and into a standing position. He has to stop them. He has to find Charlotte before Murphy and the others do. He can't let them kill Charlotte. Not only would it be wrong, it would give the impression that they're in charge, when Bellamy needs to stay on top now more than ever.

"What about everyone else?" Bellamy asks, looking around.

"None of them really knew what to do," Octavia replies. "They all just headed back to the dropship and are sitting around."

"Okay," Bellamy nods, trying to sort through his jumble of thoughts. He needs to prioritize. Charlotte is obviously the first thing he needs to worry about, but there are other things that need to get done today too. "Octavia, I'm putting you in charge. Get them back working on that wall. We should have enough food and water and firewood for tonight, so don't send anyone out of camp until I get back."

"And where are you going?" Octavia demands.

"I'm going after Murphy," Bellamy replies, his mind made up.

With that said, Bellamy takes off into the forest. He honestly doesn't even know what his plan is. He has no idea how he could possible reason with Murphy at this point, especially since Murphy has a strong little group of supporters behind him. If Bellamy comes across them, the best he could do is slow them down. And if Bellamy runs across Charlotte – well where else would there be for her to go? She's already on the run, and it's not as if there's a safe zone anywhere nearby. Not to mention the grounders are out there, and if any of them run across the hostile earth-dwellers, Bellamy's sure they won't be left alive long.

Once he starts thinking about the grounders, Bellamy realizes how stupid this all is. They should be coming together as a group, to shore up their defences for when the grounders attack. The grounders may not have killed Wells, but they sure as hell almost killed Jasper, and Bellamy is not content in just thinking that because they haven't attacked yet, they might just leave them all alone. The grounders are out there, probably biding their time, and instead of preparing, the hundred are splintering and fighting amongst themselves. If the grounders are smart – and Bellamy believes they are – they'll attack now, while the group is weak.

Bellamy pushes forward with a little more urgency. He needs to find Murphy. He needs to talk some sense into him. Or at least into his supporters. If he can get Murphy isolated, then he'll stand a chance of turning him back to the right side of all of this. As long as Murphy has followers though, there's no chance.

It's getting dark now, and Bellamy is getting more and more worried. He realizes suddenly that it's possible everyone – Charlotte, Clarke, Finn, Murphy, Mbege, and allt he rest – have already been killed by grounders lying in wait. Something Bellamy had been adamant about back at camp was that nobody be outside the wall after dark. The mandate had been put in place after Wells' death, but even though they now knew it was in inside job, it didn't change anything. At least in daylight they can see where they're going. In the dark, Bellamy finds himself stumbling through the trees with no way of knowing if he's about to stumble into a trap.

Suddenly, Bellamy hears the sound of someone running. He ducks behind a tree and peers out from behind it to see who it is. If it's Murphy – well it wouldn't be Murphy, because Murphy has a whole group with him. If it's a grounder, Bellamy's confident the axe he's got shoved into his waistband won't do much good. But it's neither Murphy nor a grounder. It's Charlotte, and for some reason she's all alone.

Damn Clarke and Finn, Bellamy think to himself as he runs forward and grabs Charlotte, covering her mouth to keep her from screaming and revealing their location. How could the two of them let Charlotte get away like this? Where are they anyway? They're supposed to be protecting her, leading her far away from camp. Bellamy had been sure he would run into Murphy first, if only because Charlotte had the head start, and here she is running back towards camp alone?

Charlotte struggles against him, pulling herself from his grasp. "Leave me alone!" she screams.

Now Bellamy is confused. He'd thought his heroic rescue of her would be appreciated, but apparently she would rather run through the forest by herself. Out of the silence, the sound of Murphy calling out for Charlotte becomes audible and Charlotte and Bellamy both turn in the direction of the voice, which is getting louder and louder the closer Murphy gets.

"We need to run," Bellamy insists, gesturing in the opposite direction. Maybe if he can get Charlotte back to camp, he can stow her on the third level of the dropship. Murphy would never expect her to be right under his nose in camp, and she's be protected by a locked door.

Unfortunately, Charlotte doesn't seem to want to run. At least, not in the right direction. She attempts to run in Murphy's direction and Bellamy grabs her, insisting that she needs to come with him.

Charlotte struggles some more, insisting that Bellamy let her go. When she finally gets free of him, she runs towards Murphy again, screaming out to him, telling him her location. Bellamy isn't sure if she's trying to be brave, if she's a complete idiot, or if she's just suicidal, but whatever the motivation, he knows that her course of action is going to get her killed.

He grabs her again, telling her as much, and she insists that she needs to give herself up. Bellamy tries to reason with her, but her mind seems made up. So grabbing her and doing his best to muffle her screams, Bellamy picks her up and starts to run, trying to put enough distance between him and Murphy to be able to have this conversation with Charlotte in calmer surroundings.

Unfortunately, Murphy has heard Charlotte's screams and is already on their tail. So Bellamy does the only thing he can – he keeps on running. He'll run as far and as long as he has to. Eventually, he's sure Murphy will get tired or bored and just give up. If not… well Bellamy doesn't have time to think about the alternative.

Murphy is gaining on him and Charlotte. That Bellamy has to carry another person is slowing him down. At this rate, Murphy will soon catch up and it'll all be over. Not only is Charlotte's added weight making things difficult, but she continues to struggle, making it hard for Bellamy to run fast. But he pushes forward, unwilling to stop until he's forced to. He won't give up on Charlotte. He's promised her that much, whether she wants the help or not.

He stops short when he finds himself standing on the edge of a cliff. "Dammit," he mutters, whirling around and looking for another way out besides down. But Murphy is close behind and in the second it took for Bellamy to register that he was standing on a cliff face, Murphy has caught up.

"Bellamy!" Murphy cries as he and his followers spread out, blocking any chance Bellamy has of getting Charlotte out somehow. "You cannot fight all of us, give her up," he demands.

No chance in hell, Bellamy thinks to himself. If they want Charlotte, they're going to have to go through him. Bellamy has no idea why he suddenly feels so protective of Charlotte that he would die for her, but in that moment he truly feels that dying to keep her safe would be a worthy cause.

Then, out of nowhere, Clarke appears, screaming at him to stop, and Bellamy feels annoyance rush in. Where has she been all this time? She was supposed to be with Charlotte, and instead she was, what? Taking a nap under some tree? Stopped for a make-out session with her spacewalker boyfriend and didn't notice when Charlotte ran off? What right does she have to come in now and take charge after failing her one and only job tonight?

She turns to Murphy and tries to reason with him. Bellamy thinks it's foolish – Murphy can't be reasoned with. Telling him to calm down is only going to make him angrier. And then in one swift movement, Murphy whips out his knife, grabs Clarke, spins her around, grabbing her to him, and puts the knife to her throat.

Bellamy feels everything go cold at the sight. Murphy can't do this. Bellamy can't let Murphy do this. If Murphy kills Clarke – Bellamy can't even imagine. He doesn't know why the idea of Clarke dying hits him so much worse than the idea of anyone else dying. Naturally it wouldn't be good for camp to have their only healer die, but Bellamy's fear is more than that. He doesn't want Murphy to kill Clarke, not because she has medical knowledge, but because she is Clarke. And that thought is so shocking to Bellamy that he needs a minute to process it. But he doesn't have a minute.

Finn begs Murphy not to do it. Charlotte pleads with Murphy not to hurt Clarke. All Bellamy can do is stand there in shocked silence and watch the whole thing play itself out.

Then Murphy says he'll make a deal. Charlotte in exchange for Clarke. And Charlotte starts to step forward to accept the deal.

Bellamy springs back into action. He doesn't know why he can't have Clarke die, but he realizes why he can't have Charlotte die. It's Octavia. She reminds him of his sister too much. And with his sister so distant from him and from the girl she used to be, Charlotte's been like a surrogate sister for him. Someone he can protect, when Octavia won't let him protect her. Maybe it's not fair to Charlotte, to be treating her like someone she's not. But it doesn't change the fact that Bellamy can't let Murphy take her.

Charlotte seems to realize that she'll never win in a physical struggle with Bellamy, so she stops pushing against him. She takes a step back and just looks sad and tortured.

"I can't let any of you get hurt anymore. Not because of me. Not after what I did," she says in a resigned voice.

If this is her trying to convince Bellamy to let Murphy kill her, she's doing a terrible job of it. Bellamy turns back to look at Murphy, to see if her words have had any effect on him, but then Clarke's whole face changes to one of terror and she cries Charlotte's name. Bellamy spins around one second too late to find that Charlotte has taken yet another step back and is going to throw herself over the cliff.

Bellamy lunges forward, desperately trying to catch Charlotte before she jumps, but he's too late. She's already out of reach, falling through the air down towards the rocky gorge that stretches out far below.

Bellamy falls to his knees, and he feels Clarke fall to the ground next to him, crying out to Charlotte and sobbing as they watch the little body fall farther and farther out of sight. Bellamy just feels numb, because he can't believe Charlotte would do this. He feels like he failed her. If he'd just resolved this with Murphy sooner, if he'd just made her feel like there was another option…

He pulls himself away from the edge of the cliff, unable to look anymore, and turns to see Murphy and the others still standing there, their faces filled with shock. In that moment, Bellamy takes all his emotions and channels them into one thing – rage. He lunges at Murphy and tackles him to the ground, punching anything he can get his hands on. Because this is all Murphy's fault. If Murphy hadn't chased Charlotte out here, insisted that she be killed for her crime, then they wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Charlotte would never have thought to kill herself without Murphy telling her she needed to die.

Before Bellamy is ready to stop, he feels arms on his shoulders pulling him away from Murphy. He screams to whoever it is to get off him. He's still angry, and Murphy's still there and Bellamy wants to go on hitting him until he's dead. Because there's no way Bellamy's ever letting Murphy back into camp. Not like this. Not after everything they'd been through with Charlotte. If Bellamy has to look at Murphy's face everyday, he might have to throw himself off the cliff face. Because what Bellamy doesn't want to admit to himself is that looking at Murphy only reminds him how the whole thing is actually his fault. Bellamy gave Charlotte the knife. Bellamy told her to slay her demons. Bellamy convicted Murphy of a crime he didn't commit. Bellamy kicked the crate out from under Murphy, sentencing him to death. Bellamy created the monster that would later want revenge against Charlotte for what happened to him. And Bellamy's the one who let Charlotte jump over the cliff.

"We don't decide who lives and dies," Clarke cries, putting herself between Bellamy and Murphy. "Not down here."

Bellamy doesn't have time for Clarke's diplomacy or whatever right now. If she wasn't a girl, Bellamy's pretty sure he'd be punching her right now too. She'd put this all into motion with her insistence that they make Murphy's crime public knowledge. She'd claimed that the people had a right to know, and that's what caused this whole mess in the first place.

But then Clarke admits her failings. She admits that she was wrong, and that Bellamy was right, and that they should not be letting justice be delivered by mob mentality. She insists that there need to be rules – that chaos isn't going to work as a system for long, and while Bellamy agrees, he just doesn't know what she wants from him.

"And who makes those rules, huh?" he demands, sure that she's going to say that she should make the rules.

"For now, we make the rules," she declares. And Bellamy finds that he can live with that. Leadership isn't all it's cracked up to be, and honestly, Bellamy's ready to share the load with someone else. That it's going to be Clarke doesn't make Bellamy intensely happy – she's annoying and irritating and constantly challenging him. But she's strong, and she'll be good for the camp, and at least if they're on the same team they can work together instead of against one another.

But there's still Murphy to deal with, and Bellamy can't just let him come back to camp and go back to doing whatever the hell he was doing before. Bellamy's not even comfortable having Murphy come back to camp as a lowly fire-tender. Bellamy never wants to see John Murphy's face ever again.

And then Clarke makes her suggestion. Banishment. And Bellamy has to agree that it's a good idea. It's not an execution, but it's as good as one. The grounders will make quick work of Murphy once they get a hold of him, which they surely will since Murphy will have nowhere to go to run from them once they find him out on his own.

Bellamy grabs Murphy by his shirt and pulls him upright. He drags him towards the cliff face, wanting to show Murphy how serious he is. He wants Murphy to know that the fact that Bellamy isn't killing him right now isn't that he's afraid or doesn't want to. He wants Murphy to know that Bellamy would kill him in a heartbeat if he ever showed his face again.

Once he's made his point clear, he throws Murphy back on the ground and then gives the rest of Murphy's supporters a choice. If they support Murphy, they'll share his fate. If they submit to Bellamy and Clarke's authority, agree to follow camp rules, they can return with the rest of them. It's no surprise to him that they all turn away from Murphy and follow him back as he begins the trip back towards camp.

The trip is completed in silence. After what's just happened, nobody wants to be the first to say anything. Bellamy leads, with Mbege and the others that followed Murphy behind him, and Clarke and Finn take up the rear. Bellamy knows he'll have to watch Mbege and the others from now on. Certainly Mbege can't be his second-in-command anymore. Not after the way he turned on him in front of the rest of the camp. And not knowing that Mbege shares some of Murphy's murderous tendencies. Bellamy will have to select a new crop of teenagers to help he and Clarke lead once they get back to camp. People that he trusts.

When they reach camp, everyone is huddled around the fire, waiting for the return of their leaders. Octavia rises to greet Bellamy, telling him that they did a bit of work on the wall throughout the afternoon, and that nobody had felt comfortable going to sleep until they knew how things had turned out in the woods.

"You have to say something to them," Octavia insists.

Bellamy nods. He knows as a leader, it's his duty, not only to direct and lead his people, but also to communicate with them. And they need to know that there are going to be rules now – real rules. And consequences. But after the day he's had, Bellamy can't make this speech alone. So he seeks out Clarke with his eyes and beckons her forward, the hundred already gathered together and waiting eagerly for some information.

"Do you want to - ?" Clarke begins, but Bellamy shakes his head.

"No, you go ahead," he nods, delegating. He's happy to stand next to Clarke while she delivers a speech. His presence will remind people that he's still in charge too. But Clarke will do better with this particular speech.

Clarke nods and takes a deep breath as she tries to figure out where to start.

"Things are going to be changing around here," Clarke declares as her first words to the crowd. "Up until now, whatever the hell we want has been our motto, and that has to stop." She looks up at Bellamy for confirmation and he nods. She's right. He'd known it for a while, but he'd stuck with it because the people had liked it, and he'd wanted the people to follow him. But if things didn't start changing, they were only going to end up with more Murphys and more Charlottes.

"If we're going to build something here, something real, we need rules. And for people who break those rules, there are going to be consequences. For now, the rules are pretty simple – do your part to contribute to building up our camp. If Bellamy or I give an order, that order is to be followed. Any actions that contribute negatively to us or the camp will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis."

While most people are nodding along with Clarke's words, some look to Bellamy, as if to make sure he's in agreement. To them, Bellamy nods, indicating that he and Clarke are now on the same page.

"John Murphy went against the camp's wishes today. When the rest of us only wanted to punish Charlotte for her crime, Murphy wanted her to be killed. When he was told to back off, he attacked one of our leaders and chased Charlotte into the woods, where in the end, she died. For the crime of disobedience and attempted murder, John Murphy has been banished from this camp. Anyone who sees him anywhere near here is to report it immediately. Anyone who wants to follow in Murphy's footsteps will share in his fate. Is that clear?"

The silence around the campfire is affirmation enough that the camp understands and agrees with the new order. Having said her piece, Clarke dismisses everyone, telling them to get some rest and that work will start again in the morning.

"Thanks princess," Bellamy nods at her, grateful that he didn't have to be the one to deliver the speech.

Clarke nods and then heads for the dropship, a few others following her, including Finn and Octavia.

Bellamy thinks about following, to see what they're all doing in there, but he's too exhausted to care. For now, there are no crises to deal with. Camp is safe. A few campers are stationed on guard duty and a rotation has already been arranged. With nothing left that needs doing, Bellamy heads for his tent, where he lays down on his makeshift bed of leaves and other crap stuffed inside some material from the dropship and lets his mind wander.

Unfortunately, his mind wanders to Charlotte, and soon he is picturing her falling to her death over and over again, unable to turn his mind off to sleep. It's like torture, watching her jump and unable to do anything about it. Finally, Bellamy gets so frustrated, he stands up and heads outside, desperate for a distraction.

He looks around at the camp to find that most people have already gone to sleep, leaving him with limited options. He isn't about to go past the walls, because it's dangerous out there at night and he'd have limited visibility to see oncoming predators or grounders. And he's not about to put himself in danger just for the sake of distraction. He can't do that to Octavia.

He considers heading inside the dropship to see what Clarke and Finn's big powwow in there is about, but then he notices a girl on her way back from the lavatory corner of the camp – they'd installed a small area for people to go to the bathroom inside the wall at nighttime, when it was too dangerous to go outside the wall – and he remembers his first night on the ground.

Having made up his mind about the kind of distraction he needs, Bellamy walks over to the girl, who is now trying with difficulty to make herself comfortable on the hard ground.

"Sleeping on the ground like that can't be comfortable," Bellamy notes, standing over her.

The girl sits up and shakes her head. "Not all of us are lucky enough to have tents and beds of our own to sleep in," she replies.

"Well why don't you come and share mine?" Bellamy suggests. He can see from the girl's expression that she understands perfectly the proposition Bellamy has just offered her and she accepts.

"Yeah," she says, standing up and taking a step closer to Bellamy. "Yeah, alright."

Bellamy wraps an arm around the girl's waist and pulls her close, wasting no time in claiming her with his lips. He just wants to forget – forget about Charlotte, forget about Murphy, forget about even being on the ground. Maybe this girl can help him with that.

As Bellamy leads the girl back to his tent, he remembers something important from the last time he did this. He's not going to make the same mistake as last time. He might be using this girl for his own selfish purposes, but he's not going to treat her like she's nothing.

"What's your name?" Bellamy asks as they pass under the tent flap of his tent and she starts to pull him down on top of her on his bed.

"Raina," she girl replies.

"Raina," Bellamy repeats, causing the girl to smile. With that little detail out of the way, Bellamy pushes all other thoughts from his mind and just lets himself feel, losing himself in the sensation of being with a girl and having her body against his. And for a little while, he forgets.


End file.
